When my mom told me, together we cringed and bemoaned the fact that such a horrific and shameful choice for self-government would have come from the people of our city. I remember the feeling of disappointment in the city I would love to love.  I couldn’t really remember the guy’s name, it was an odd one, but in my mind I called him “the butcher,” picturing a typical political thug from my bloody hometown’s streets, kind of greasy like Daley or Blagojevich.

But I found out four or five years later that I was totally wrong.  He was not greasy and he was no typical thug.  And his name would prove to be unforgettable.  Imagine the horror of every Illinoisan with a conscience when offered up before the nation as a redeemer was our own hometown “butcher,” our radical activist, our conscience-less ideologue:  Barack Obama.

It was like a bad dream.  I lived in Washington at the time, on the West coast.  People I liked and loved were entranced.  He was beautiful. He was eloquent, brilliant, persuasive, filled with hope…even seemingly gentle and meek.  America opened her mind and closed her conscience.  Millions of confused people blocked out his record, who he was, what he had been, who his associations were, what he believed, and (what sets him apart) how radically consistently his acts are with his beliefs.  The man who was unmoved by living, breathing babies left to die of exposure because of ideology.  His response to the nurse whose testimony prompted the bill:  ”This would threaten Roe v. Wade.”

That information was totally accessible, but most Americans did not care to know.  Or to really consider it.  Much more convenient to put that on the shelf as one issue among many, one which there are “many strong opinions on.”  See, one-issue voters are looked down upon as ignorant, or somehow incapable of taking in the complexity of society, government, and political science and so getting stuck on a fundamentalist’s broken record.  But one-issue voters are not ignorant.  They are walking through a bad dream, looking around them and asking, “Has the world gone mad?  Do you realize you just sent a proponent of infanticide to Washington to govern you and your children?”

Barack Obama, with his sweet talk and horrific convictions, perfectly represents what has happened to the abortion issue in America.  The most obvious, unclouded moral choice that ever faced a human being has been labelled “complicated” and “polarizing,” and Americans are buying the product.  I’ve seen believers totally deceived by political lunacy.  Arguments that take aim at anyone’s authority to make a moral stand on not killing children.  Coming from within the church.  Arguments about the hypocrisy of embracing the death penalty and rejecting abortion.  As if there’s no difference between the innocent and the guilty.  Arguments about neglecting the poor, as if aborting children is somehow a way to lift anyone out of poverty.

And most importantly, arguments about the complexity and importance of other issues.

I would like to be clear on this.  Any person who wants to govern me but cannot rightly divide the simplest moral question we could ever face…should we protect children or defend their destruction…has NO WISDOM to offer on ANY topic.  See, one-issue voting is not about naively believing that a pro-life candidate will make a great elected official, it’s about something even simpler:  that an abortion proponent has NO potential to make a great elected official.  They fail the most basic possible litmus test of good judgment.  When someone is a complete moral failure on the most horrific level conceivable, they SHOULD NOT BE ON MY BALLOT!  Has the world gone mad?  Must we sift through thieves and murderers when we are at the polls?

Unfortunately, our political system leaves us with polarized choices, so we don’t get to pick from among decent candidates.  Which one might have wisdom?  Which has great management experience?  Who has proved themselves, done well, governs rightly?  We don’t get to choose that.  That, my friends, is not my fault.  I have the intelligence, capacity, and experience to consider all those factors, as do many in our country.  But I do not get that opportunity.  I have to use my vote to try to keep the butcher away from the power to nominate Supreme Court Justices.

So don’t patronize me for being a one-issue voter.  Don’t call me ignorant.  Because I will ask you for some quick facts.  I will ask how much you know about the methods of abortion.  About saline, suction, induction, surgical dismemberment.  About whether pain-killer is administered to the child.  About whether or not a full-term baby can still be aborted.  I’ll ask you if you’ve looked at pictures.  No?  Why not?  I’ll ask about states where a parent cannot know if their thirteen year-old is aborting, but has to sign waivers to approve the use of aspirin.  I’ll ask if you know about the trafficking of human fetal parts, and how much a brain costs.  I’ll ask if you know about the medical research on aborted babies that occurs while they are still alive.  I’ll ask if you know about the billions of dollars generated, and where they go.  I’ll ask if you know that 80% of abortion clinics are in minority neighborhoods, and one out of three African-American babies is lost to abortion.  I’ll ask if you know that Planned Parenthood (you’ll recognize their logo from seeing our politicians give speeches from their platforms) was founded to reduce undesirable (poor and minority) populations.  I might have a lot of ignorant questions for you.

And if you feel that we should lower our voices because the conversation is polarizing, I’ll ask you if you think America experienced “polarization” around the time of the civil war, and if you think slavery was an important issue.  I’ll ask if you might have been a one-issue voter back in 1855.  And if you fancy you would have been, and if I’m really feeling saucy, I might ask you if you feel more comfortable standing up for the defenseless a few centuries too late.

But for now, just one question.  How can you NOT be a one-issue voter?