Summary
Ahead of the 2024 election, Generation Z has sparked a trend on TikTok, “canceling out” family members’ votes by voting opposite their Trump-supporting relatives. Many young women post videos showing them voting for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, contrasting with family members supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Although Gen Z voters lean slightly toward Harris, a significant portion supports Trump. With over 47 million early votes cast, polls show a tight race, especially in key swing states.
I know someone in this circumstance, and it comes down to exactly one issue: abortion. The spouse is Roman Catholic and cannot support abortion, so despite disagreeing with most of the republican platform, they feel obligated to vote with the party that opposes it. I had the same thing crop up in 2008 with a roommate who was Greek Orthodox and in every way one of the most progressive people I knew, but they voted McCain purely on this one issue out of religious guilt.
The spouse is Roman Catholic and cannot support abortion
That is bullshit.
They can support abortion as much as they want, they don’t want to support it.
I hate it when people say that they can’t do X because their religion, be honest and say that you don’t want to do X because they want to follow the rules of their religion.
And abortion being legal doesn’t mean shit for a Catholic.
No one’s up in arms because non-Catholics eat meat during lent or don’t believe in transubstantiation.
Their religious belief has no place in government. If they don’t want to do it, then don’t.
I 100% agree with the sentiment, but you can’t really compare not following religious rituals and what the religious consider murder. The existence of injustice is enough to mean something to someone. That’s how empathy works.
People get up in arms over the death penalty, and I don’t think it’s right to tell them that if they don’t like it, just don’t commit a capital crime or pay attention to scheduled executions.
The same for both Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, people are demonstrating and attempting to bring their beliefs to the government. The people who have true conversations about abortion see these as equivalent.
That is true of everything that isn’t barred by the fundamentals of physics, and disingenuous and you know it.
You can murder people, you can enslave others, Hindus can slaughter and eat cows, etc, you just don’t want to because it’s illegal.
For most religious people the tenents of their faith are core to their being and not something they just kinda like. Otherwise they tend to deconstruct from their religion after the inertia runs out. That’s why religion in the West is on a downward trajectory outside of Islam which is driven by immigration.
I fully support reproductive rights as much as the next guy, but let’s not pretend that the person outlined above single issue voting against abortion isn’t looking at the other side as otherwise great but you have to accept a few sanctioned murders. You would probably be single issue voting if we had a modern Aztec government that was close to a utopia but practiced human sacrifices to Quetzalcoatl because it maintains prosperity.
Real laws are different though, they have a state sanctioned justice system that forces compliance.
Following a religion in the US is not regulated by law, but is a choice.
Sadly, groups of people are working to change this.
If a religion’s rules do become proper laws then you can use “can’t” correctly.
But they choose to subscribe to that religion and could choose to stop. They could choose to no longer make it core to their being.
