Liberal or conservative?

I know, I know.  Some people are going to be downright amazed that I am writing another post so soon after my last one.  Oh well, get over it!  I usually blog when something excites or irritates me.  Funny how both of those things elicit the same response.......

I HATE being referred to as a liberal.  For anybody who doesn't know, my political leanings are more toward Democrats than Republicans.  Please, do not tell the Baptist Pope, I may get excommunicated for these political beliefs.  I do not think that being a Christian and a Democrat are mutually exclusive.  That is probably a violation of the Ten Commandments or it could say "Thou shalt not be a Democrat" somewhere in Leviticus, but I will claim ignorance on those.  But i digress.

First of all, I have very conservative values.  I feel abortion should be outlawed.  Not all of you who read this will agree and I could probably guess which of you disagree, but that is just how I feel.  I think that they should take sex ed out of the schools.  This should be combined with more offerings of free sex ed classes elsewhere.  Parents could then choose what organization they think should be teaching their kids sex ed based on the organizations values or they can take it upon themselves to teach this.

Some of my beliefs are a little gray.  I am for government recognized same sex civil unions.  I am against church recognized same sex unions.  I feel that homosexuals can be Christians.  We all are sinners and only we rank sin.  With that said, the Bible says that being a drunkard is a sin so we do not have keggers at church.  We do not, however, get up in arms trying to end the sale of alcohol.  I see this issue the same.  I do not see how homosexual civil unions ruin the sanctity of marriage more than those people who are on their eighth spouse.  I have yet to see legislation that limits the number of divorces a person can have simply because they are tired of their current spouse.

My fiscal beliefs are where I completely diverge.  I do not believe that private industry should be profiting off of necessities.  I see necessities as things such as water, electricity, food, health care, and a few other things.  As a matter of fact, I find it quite detestable that companies do profit off of the suffering and misery of others.  I read an article the other day blasting companies that come in and help disaster victims for a profit.  How is that any different than a hospital making a profit off of a woman who was struck by a stray bullet during a drive by?  The logical disconnect sometimes astounds me.

Back to food, this is actually Biblical when talking about feeding the poor.  Leviticus tells us that it is a sin to sell food to the poor at a profit.  This is commonplace.  Before anybody says that this is old testament and no longer applies, remember, this is the same book that tells us that laying with a man as you would a woman is a sin.  The double standards are driving me batty!!  Dom Helder Camara said it best.  "When I feed the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

To be honest, I also side with Fiscal conservatism.  I do not think that we should spend more than we take in as a country.  I, however, do not believe that we should simply cut all of our social programs to do it.  Some of you know where I work.  Some of you don't, but that is OK.  I work in an office that administers federal grants.  I love that there is one local Republican politician that helps his constituents get funding under these grants and then goes to Washington and tells Congress how they do not work and that they need to be cut.  I want to tell these people who he is trying to help that "we would love to fund them, but the Congressman that told you he would help you just went to Washington and told them that you weren't worth it."

I do agree with small tax increases coupled with the closing of several tax loopholes.  I also feel that we need to stop funding special interest projects and tighten the reigns on spending across the board.  I feel that we should drug test welfare and food stamp recipients.  I feel that people getting unemployment should have to meet daily and do community service projects for a couple of hours a day and attend mandatory job skill workshops.  I am pretty certain that the cost of paying people to supervise workers and teach classes will be offset by the number of people unwilling to work for unemployment.  I have several other ideas, but I will not list them all here.

All in all, I am tired of labels.  Our two party system has created this extreme void in the middle.  It makes me sick that everybody gets stuck under the label of conservative or liberal.  There is a LOT of gray area.  I hope that I did not anger too many people with this post.  I do understand if anybody drops me as a FB friend or leaves me a nasty comment.  I just had to dump all of this off somewhere.  Have a blessed day!!!