As a Catholic, and indeed as a human person in general, there are certain guidelines that you cannot ignore when deciding for whom to cast your vote in an election. Pope Benedict XVI has reiterated some of these in the form of three "non-negotiables" - Sanctity of Life, Sanctity of Marriage, and Parental Rights:
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today:
First Principle:
- protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;
Second Principle:
- recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family - as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage - and its defence from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role;
Third Principle:
- the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
These principles are binding to all, not just Catholics and Christians:
These principles are not truths of faith, even though they receive further light and confirmation from faith; they are inscribed in human nature itself and therefore they are common to all humanity. The Church’s action in promoting them is therefore not confessional in character, but is addressed to all people, prescinding from any religious affiliation they may have. On the contrary, such action is all the more necessary the more these principles are denied or misunderstood, because this constitutes an offence against the truth of the human person, a grave wound inflicted onto justice itself.
There are only three candidates who espouse all three of these "non-negotiables" - Ron Paul, Alan Keyes, and Mike Huckabee.
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