While I do not think Mormons are Christians (at least that fully believe in the Mormon doctrines), that does not mean I would not vote for them. Many Mormons a good family oriented people with family values at heart. So, that part would not force me one way or another.
It has shocked me how many people say they would not vote for Romney just because he is a Mormon. This in my books is wrong as he appears to be a man with good family values wanting the same out of life as most Christians.
I do not vote Republican nor Democrat, if the person stands for what I believe is important and does not cross my faith, then they will have my vote.
- What will automatically take a person off my list?
- ProDeath - If they support abortion, I will not vote for them regardless of anything else
- Anti-Christian, Anti-Family or Anti-Semitic, again, any of these would be a deal breaker
Those are the most important and cover lots of ground. If a candidate falls into any of the above list, I would not vote for them regardless any other issue they support.
There are other issues as a USA Citizen I find important and can sway my vote:
- Illegal Immigration: I do not believe it should be allowed, it does not matter the need, they are breaking the law by crossing the border (all borders included not just USA/Mexico border). The children of Illegals if born here are still illegals and should not be classified citizens as their parents are criminals and here illegally, thus so are they! If people want to migrate to the USA, that is fine, but just do it legally.
- Business: There is far too many restrictions on business in the USA which can help push them out of the USA or to offshore their work. Less restrictions and greater help to keep businesses in business.
- Wage: Most large businesses are greed driven and will not pay a person any more than they absolutely have to pay. as their focus is only one making money and nothing else. Being an employer is a privilege as they are responsible for the wellbeing of their employees. Any smart business owner will take good care of their employees as it is the employees that grow the business.
With that said, I believe there should be a minimum wage in this country and that wage should be set high enough that a full time employee can take care of a family of five without requiring the spouse to work outside the home. At this time that would mean Minimum Wage would have to be $15-$20 per hour, that is the least any company should pay their employees, anything less is slave labor! Some might say that is too hard on the businesses and they cannot afford it, well, then maybe those businesses need to look into a different line of business that is more profitable, if they cannot afford to pay employees fairly.
- Loss of USA jobs to other countries: As with Minimum Wage, businesses should have a form of limitations when it comes to shipping jobs to other countries because they can get a lower wage. It is high time they USA adopt a method of fines against offshoring of jobs. Make those greedy businesses pay at least minimum wage (USA amount above) to offshored work as they do here. If the price is the same, the work will remain here.
- Healthcare: Here is one area that smells big time of corruption. While I believe we are a blessed nation and every citizen should have minimal coverage, I do not think it is smart to use the current healthcare industry to provide that coverage. There are those that want the government to fork over money to pay the corrupt healthcare industry for their over inflated prices and poor service. It is time the government build a government sponsored healthcare industry to provide those basic levels of healthcare. The current system can still continue for those that want to pay it, but give everyone an option.
- IRAQ: I personally do not believe in war unless God Himself commanded it. With that said though, I do not believe in going over to IRAQ, destroying their power to rule and then leaving with it broken in civil war and daily terror attacks. It seems we do not have enough military over there to secure the country and much like previous times, those that voted for war now want to pull out and leave a bigger more deadly mess than there was originally.
Our government needs to take this seriously and send enough troops over there to make the country safe for its citizens and leave with it in the hands of leaders not diplomats. It would also be better to move more Iraqis up to the front line even if we need to pay them well for doing it. It is their country after all.
- Torture: I never thought I would hear this country stand for torture in any form, but it now seems to be acceptible at least in limited amounts. Some examples portray an attack somewhere that would kill millions and a person knows the answer to stop it. Under such a situation they say, torture could give the answer to save millions. That begs the question though "at what cost?" If we become that which we fight against in the process, it seems we have already lost. There use to be a belief that we must remain honorable at all costs, but that appears to be lost in our modern world. Let's flip this over into our Christian world, would you deny your faith if it would save a million people? There is just a line people cannot and should not cross and this is one of them.
I know there are more, but they are not coming to mind at the moment. Have been very busy knocking out a few other websites lately and am pretty tired this morning.
The primary point is, it does not matter if a candidate is a Mormon, Baptist or ... It only matters if they actually represent my views and have the ability to lead.
WIth the current group of rich people that are running on both of the major parties, the first person that is out of the race in my books is Hillary Clinton. Why, is it because she is a woman? Nope, before I even think about here stance on the primary issues at the top o fhis post, I do not feel it is fair for her to run as both her and Bill already served the maximum time in office and she has no right to run again. I know, peopel buy into the technicallity that she was not in office, it was her husband, but a married couple should be considered as one and as such she has already used up her allowed time in office!
So, at this point I do not really have a clue who will be my choice, but I will not discount someone with family values just because they are not a Christian.