From the Community | Don’t ask voters to set faith aside

In a recent Daily piece “Faith and the ballot box,” Paul Fertig lays out a case for how religious people should approach voting in the United States, advocating that religious people should not vote to pass legislation to restrict the choice of others who do not share their beliefs. “I only hope that I, and countless others, should not be made to live according to how one God or another asks us,” he wrote. He uses several examples throughout his essay such as physician-assisted suicide and same-sex marriage to illustrate how religious people have exercised their right to vote to try to restrict the personal choices of all Americans. 

I want to clarify that the purpose of my response is not to debate specific political issues mentioned in the essay, and I acknowledge that there have been times in recent history where religious overreach has occurred in the government. Poignant examples include the recent attempts by several state governments to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, clearly crossing the line separating church and state in our country. However, voting in accordance with your religious beliefs, contrary to what Fertig argues, is not an example of religious overreach. I would like to address Fertig’s primary argument: that religious people should not vote in accordance with their religious beliefs if they restrict the choices of people that do not share their beliefs. 

My initial reaction to this position was that it stems from a misunderstanding of religious people and what it means to live in a democracy like the U.S. For religious people, what you believe affects every aspect of your life: how you spend your time, interact with others and conceive of our collective purpose on Earth. Asking someone to set aside their religious beliefs when they vote is asking them to disregard a crucial aspect of their identity. Imagine telling a mother that she could not consider policies through the lens of how they would affect her children. After all, not everyone has children and therefore should not be subjected to policies simply because a mother chooses to vote in line with what is best for her child.

As Abraham Lincoln eloquently put it, democracy is, at its heart, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” How can democracy be “of the people” if the people are forced to suppress their identities when exercising their democratic right to vote? How can it be “by the people” if people cannot select leaders that support the causes and values they believe in? And, most importantly, how can a government be “for the people” if it does not work to implement the vision that the people see for their country as expressed through votes cast in free and fair elections? 

Fertig wants voters to maximize the choices of others, even if the voter believes that having this choice hurts society. This position in and of itself is a moral stance that the author presumably believes is best for society. He might defend his views as being based in logic or science, but to reach a conclusion about one’s moral view on an issue, one must start from some initial set of moral beliefs. For religious people, these morals come from God. Secular people may derive their beliefs from a similar moral principle, such as Kant’s Categorical Imperative which holds that you should act only in ways you would be willing to see everyone act if they were in the same circumstances. Or they may adhere to Utilitarianism which states that the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest overall good (or “utility”) for the greatest number of people. From a secular point of view, both religious and secular frameworks are based on interpretations of reality, not objective truth.

It is important to point out here that religious people are not a monolithic group. Even within Christianity there are wide-ranging views on different political issues. While religious leaders often voice their opinions on political issues, it is still up to each individual religious person to vote according to their conscience, especially when beliefs do not map directly onto party lines. In the most recent presidential election, Pope Francis illustratively urged Catholics to pick the “lesser evil” between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. He left the decision up to each individual Catholic because both candidates had a mix of views, some in alignment with Catholic beliefs and others that ran contrary to doctrine. 

Fertig is approaching this issue with his own moral beliefs just like any rational person would, religious or otherwise. This is human nature. It is not only our prerogative to vote for what we believe is best for our fellow citizens and for our country; rather, it is our duty. This is how a functioning democracy works. To my fellow Stanford students: I encourage you to have strong beliefs, to stand behind them, to respect the beliefs of others and to vote with the conviction of a citizen who cares about their fellow citizens, whatever that means to you.

Alex Mescher ’25 M.S. ’26 is studying aeronautics and astronautics.

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