Danger of Religions Dictating Whom We Should Vote

No candidate or politician for that matter would admit that our supposedly democratic political system has become hostage to pressure groups. This, despite the fact that their control is obvious, particularly on the choice of candidates that, as a result, destroyed the dynamics of our democracy which begins on our right to select candidates we want to elect. We say this because there are rights acknowledged as indivisible to the individual that cannot be passed on as rights of religious organizations using the individual as medium to secure them.

There is really nothing wrong in voting in accordance to the ideology of the organization to which one belongs, it being a part of the democratic process. But certainly, it is dangerous to see an individual voting in abeyance to the wishes of his church. This observation is not based on any subjectivism, but on the fact that almost all religions are intolerant to democracy. Maybe they would not threaten non-members and non-believers with corporal punishment for disobeying, but definitely they would not think twice to condemn members with spiritual punishment of eternal damnation.

Any state with a sense of political responsibility will never allow religious organizations to usurp the rights of their individual followers and claim them as their own. The rights of organizations can never supersede the rights of the individual. The Constitution can only give rights to individuals, and only in a limited sense to organizations like corporations. More than that, whatever right is extended to organizations, whether religious or political, is attributed to its members. An organization without a member would have no right much that the value and validity of its rights can only be measured on how the members are willing to enforce them.

In the first place, an organization is a mindless entity and a fiction of one’s mind, but is only made alive by the one running it. The rights that organizations enjoy cannot even be felt vicariously because it is the leaders that in fact enjoy those rights justified by the cloak of their being the head of their religious organizations. Nonetheless, the State should make sure that religious rights should not be allowed to supersede or infringe on the rights of the individual. To accede to the view that the rights of religious organizations is over and above that of the individual or that religions have every right to usurp the rights of the individual-members is to open the Pandora’s Box.

In our system of democracy, political rights, including our right to vote and elect our public officials, have always been interpreted strictly from an egalitarian point of view. It means that everybody is treated equally, although in many ways they are not equal in their economic and social standings. Besides, the interest of the individual can never be made synonymous with that of his organization even if he so believes. So, for us to accept that proposition is to lay down a dreadful precedent because it puts forward an assumption that the choice is the holistic representation of God’s wisdom which is at most doubtful.

Even then, logic tells us that it is not a question of choosing between man and God, but between man and his religion such that what may be good to him may not be good to his religious organization. Worse, what may be good to one’s religion may not also be good to the organization to which he is a member, but only to those who manipulate the organization for their own selfish ends.

Moreover, even if we are to take as infallible that what is good for their religious organization will be good to the individual members, that assumption stands as a contradiction. No matter how noble is the goal of that religion, there are other religions and the contradiction between them begins on the fact that they belong to different religious faith, even if they espouse the same spiritual goal and moral guidance to their members. This stems from the reality that what we have is a democratic and pluralistic society.

At times, the contradiction becomes violent if their differences revolve on the interpretation of the biblical tenet or when a particular religion preaches a militant line that peace and unity could only come if their religion achieves universality, which incidentally is an indirect message that it will not tolerate other religions, except their own. This line is also expressed in their veiled threat that those who refuse to be baptized by their religion will suffer eternal damnation in hell.

In other words, even if one would take that two religious organizations use the same bible as their parameter to recruit members, the contradiction is based on the logical fact that they cannot co-exist within the context of a given society. Contempt by the members of one religious organization to people belonging to other religions is based on that simple fact that they do not belong to what one would call “the true and rightful religion.”

For us to accept that religious doctrine is to erase from our people their constitutional right to elect the candidates of their choice. Their argument that those rights belong to their church is not only illogical, but puts on the spot the zealot claim of their leaders that it was bestowed to them by God. This now opens the door to charlatanism and demagoguery much that to usurp that right is to sow the seeds of hatred and divisiveness. It not only divest from them their political right which is guaranteed by the Constitution, but partakes of an affront to other religious organizations liberal and broadminded enough to give their members the freedom of choice, and accepting it as separate from their right to worship.

In fact, some religions, like the Roman Catholic Church and other Protestant sects, take a broader view, that the decision of the majority is interpreted and synthesized as the voice of God, or vox populi vox dei. This rational stand now creates a contradiction because the winner or the elected official is assumed to have been chosen by God by the guiding spirit of the individual conscience, and not on the basis that he was endorsed by the hierarchy of that religious organization.

However, to avoid embarrassment under that situation, where certain candidates despite being endorsed fail to win, religious organizations beforehand make their own secret survey. If the outcome indicate they are likely to win, only then will that religious organization come out to exhort the members to vote for them, usually two or three days before the election. And should they win, the religious organization may claim they won because of their support and often equating their endorsement as Divine guidance that indeed the winners are the most qualified and the most morally fit to govern. This shrewd move is easily glossed over by gratitude, and not by the hard facts that they were expected to win.

The irony about this modus operandi, if we might call it, is that these religious organizations have no qualms in endorsing candidates even if they openly kept their distance, have not paid homage or made a courtesy call on their leaders or even expressed at times their displeasure at the practice. This also antagonizes some members because they could not understand why their hierarchy would endorse one who can be less sympathetic to their faith. In which case, should that candidate win, what would seep into his subconsciousness is he won because of the support extended to him.

This also explains why this religious organization prohibits with equal vigor its members from running for public office even threatening them with excommunication should they defy the prohibition. The logic is understandable, which is to prevent the split of their vote as when brethrens would vie for the same position and they happen to belong to different political parties.

Their sect in that case cannot endorse one brethren while rejecting the other, or worse rejecting a brethren in favor of a non-member all because he is likely to win. It will not only destroy the façade of solidarity, but could be most embarrassing, for in that case their religion will be tested not on the durability of its doctrine, but on the value they see in one useful to their objective.

Having anticipated that situation, they came out with a formula of preventing altogether their members from seeking public office. Thus, taking a close look at this unorthodox religious practice, the same imposition is now used by that sect to curtail the right of the members to run for public office which is equally guaranteed by the Constitution. This they strictly enforce because the potency of their endorsement is wholly dependent on their ability to deliver that much-needed solid votes.

Members of other religions condemn the practice because they see it as an attempt to deprive the members of their political right by brazenly interpreting their dictation as part of their religious discipline. The irony is while their church leaders claim it as a religious discipline their insistence deprives the members of their constitutional right to run for public office. Worse, it is no longer the individual members that interpret what is moral in exercising their political rights, but their leaders equating political rights as part of their moral ascendancy over that of their members.

Thus, the moral ascendancy to impose discipline now becomes a potent weapon to extract political and economic leverage from the elected leaders who is made to believe that their victory was made possible because of their support. This practice gives the religious organization an advantage to other religious organizations that simply extended to their members their freedom of choice. Thus, religious organizations that were conscientious to allow their members to vote based on their conscience cannot exert the same degree of leverage to demand concessions all for the simple reason that it did not use its leverage to solidly back up that winning candidate.

It may not even be a question of them using their solid vote to extract a bargain, but a question of preference between one religious organization that can deliver the votes as against other religious organizations that observed the democratic rule of allowing their members to vote in accordance to their conscience. Elected politicians under that circumstance need not be blackmailed or subtly reminded of the support given them. Rather, as a matter of gratitude they are obligated to accommodate the members of that sect for their support.

Once that has been established, the corrupt symbiotic relationship will continue for as long as the surrogate politician remains in office and enjoys the patronage of that church. It is in this sense why we say the dynamics of free will as emanating from the individual is stultified because the role of pressure groups has become a pre-eminent factor. Democracy is streamlined to power blocs that can deliver the votes, and not on the stereotype process of having been chosen by the majority voting on their individual choice.

If we are to take it, that freedom of religion includes also the freedom not to believe, then it is even more difficult to conceive of allowing non-believers to enjoy the fruits of that misguided religious discipline. We are saying this because a religious organization that deprives its members their political freedom equally deprives them of their right to determine not only the difference between what is right and what is wrong, but also of what is good and what is bad. The basis is focused on what will be good for his religion, and not that he may find comfort in him electing a leader committed to serving humanity.

But as it is, spiritual leaders who tell their members to vote for this or that candidate because in their judgment it is morally good and right for them is in truth not invoking the interest of the mindless organization, but their own interest as they will be the first to benefit from the application of that misguided discipline. Their threat to expel members who defy the so-called discipline of their church exposes them as people who do not believe in democracy or even understand that democracy is an egalitarian doctrine.

On the contrary, their heathen theory that the choice in whom to vote should emanate from the judgment of the church leader, and obedience is instilled as discipline is their best assurance that nobody will transgress the order. More so if the order is presented by one who is projected as a living prophet or a messiah. In which case, the individual is being pitted against an organization that is being used by demagogues and charlatans hiding behind the cloak of religiosity.

This spells out the difference between capitalism as a system that gives to every individual the opportunity to economically rise from that of democracy which is anchored on the principle of political equality. In fact, the continued exercise of this misguided belief that religion is supreme over that of the individual in selecting the leader who will chart the destiny of this nation is the greatest stumbling block why we have failed to mature politically.

This carte blanche privilege that capitalizes on the credulity of our people is now pushing us to the precipice of an open-ended religious conflict. Should we reach that stage where religious organizations are firmly in control, they could render inoperative the very mechanisms of our democracy. Thus, if today our democratic system is considered by many as dysfunctional, tomorrow it will be worse for we might find ourselves fighting a fratricidal war that is rooted on religious differences.

One must bear in mind that in a religious conflict, the so-called warriors of faith loath the idea of peace with compromise. This premonition should now serve as warning that we cannot continue to tolerate religious organizations infringing on the political rights of their members, like instilling a doctrine that would end up in us being enslaved by religious intolerance, and whose view of freedom is one that must strictly conform to their teachings.