US presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tackled some important issues – including jobs, immigration, energy, and pay equity for women – in their recent TV debate. But they missed a whole lot more, says the progressive evangelical ‘Sojourners’ magazine and movement.
US presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tackled some important issues – including jobs, immigration, energy, and pay equity for women – in their recent TV debate. But they missed a whole lot more, says the progressive evangelical ‘Sojourners’ magazine and movement.
Among the items that Sojourners has been talking about this election, but that were not addressed the other night, are:
* Poverty: To spark conversation about poverty during election season, Sojourners has released a documentary called ‘The Line’, which highlights stories from four people living under the poverty line. More than 2,000 Sojourners activists hosted screenings, and it has been viewed by tens of thousands of people.
* Stewardship of God’s creation: Scientists are now starting to connect the dots between severe weather events and global climate change. This should be a top issue for our next president. Sojourners believes that Christians are called to protect clean air and water and work toward a renewable energy future.
* Elimination of nuclear weapons: The staggering counts of nuclear warheads in our world are not in line with Christian values of peace and restraint of violence, Sojourners says. The candidates ought to support peace – in Afghanistan by ending drone attacks and globally by using international law to counter terrorism.
* Get money out of politics: One person equals one vote – buying elections is immoral.
Sojourners has published an Election 2012 Issues Guide on these and other concerns.
The network says it is “working hard to get the presidential candidates to go deeper than just talking about the hot-button issues. Both President Obama and Governor Romney responded to our request for their plans to address poverty, and we will continue to press them on each of our issues.”
* More at: http://sojo.net/
* “Tell the presidential candidates to put the focus on poverty”: https://secure3.convio.net/sojo/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=511