Priorities
Yesterday's Gospel Reading:
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.
Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking,
“Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?”
But they kept silent; so he took the man and,
after he had healed him, dismissed him.
Then he said to them
“Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern,
would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?”
But they were unable to answer his question. (Luke 14:1-6)
In his homily, our priest showed that what Jesus was doing was pointing out the misguided priorities of the Pharisees who, likely without understanding it, were placing the needs of animals above the needs of men. They would never have cured a sick man on the Sabbath since that would violate the Sabbath law, but without hesitation help a young man or even an ox who was in trouble. As Jesus stated on another occasion, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath". (Mark 2:27) The Pharisees had their priorities backward.
So do those who support pro-abortion or pro-euthanasia political candidates because of their support for health care or welfare or a minimum wage increase or the cause du jour. What good are any of those rights to a person who's been killed? What good is it to say "Yes, you're dead, but had we not killed you, you would have been guaranteed $7.25 an hour at a job, so it balances out in the end!"
Picture it this way: if you were offered the chance to end poverty forever in exchange for the immediate end of someone's life, would you do it? Of course not. And you'd think anyone who would trade even a single life for such a worthy end would be a monster. Yet, aren't those who made the "trade" mentioned the above paragraph doing that, but with a much larger payment for a much smaller gain? Over 1 million deaths a year from abortion plus who knows any many from legalized euthanasia. That's even more horrific since the policies they're getting in their bargain won't end poverty (and likely worsen it, as students of economics will tell you.)
Voting isn't simply a matter of counting how many positions of each candidate you support and going with the candidate with the higher amount of agreement; some values have to take priority over others. Claiming otherwise is foolish. You need to make sure your priorities are straight before you vote, otherwise you're no better than the Pharisees in the Gospel story above.