Opinion: Vote with your conscience

I stopped going to church in 2016. I became a Christian in 2005, but I could not keep going to a place where politics became more important than Jesus.

I live my faith and spirituality at home, reading about people like me, who still have beliefs, but do not subscribe to the evangelical Christian nationalism agenda. Some people may not consider me a Christian, and that’s fine. I don’t hold my beliefs and my faith for others, I carry my faith for myself and my conscience. 

For many Christians, being pro-life and pursuing a national abortion ban is what their conscience and their faith are telling them to do. I can not bring myself to that place. 

Separating church and state has been a pillar of this nation since its birth when the Founding Fathers decreed in the First Amendment that people should be free to worship or not. 

We have already seen what abortion bans can do. Forcing doctors to interpret the law when to intervene or when to deny care has caused women like Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain to die in Texas. 

When does life start? If we consider the heartbeat the start of life, why is it that after birth there are no protections for that child? Why is it that guns have more rights than school children? No door, no special panic room in a classroom is going to be able to protect children from AR-15s. Is life only precious in utero? We can’t pretend we value life when we protect guns more than we protect children.

There are many issues on the ballot this Tuesday. All I ask is that you vote with your conscience. Vote with what you can live with.

No life is more important than another, but we can’t fight against the tyranny of a government that won’t even allow making our voices heard.