The Value of Saving Lives

Jun 5th, 2007 12:00 PM UTC
By Alan Boswell, ONE Online Organizer

Last night at ONE’s headquarters, the remaining staff in the office gathered in front of a TV with our laptops so we could watch the presidential forum on faith hosted by Sojourners (a partner organization of ONE) and broadcasted by CNN while we finished our work for the day. The ONE Campaign co-sponsored the Presidential Forum on Faith, Values, and Poverty, which featured the leading Democratic presidential candidates-Edwards, Obama, and Clinton.

As the name suggests, the candidates fielded questions on their personal faith and how their faith affected their political life. ONE is a broad movement of Americans from all religious and political beliefs, and many of our members are people of faith who vote on the values derived from this faith. For these members, ONE’s issues represent a moral imperative, a belief that our faith demands taking action on behalf of the world’s poor, starving widows, and ill orphans.

I consider myself among this group of ONE members who are strongly motivated by their religious beliefs, and so I was especially pleased to hear “helping the poor” and “faith values” tied together as I watched national broadcast. Too often in recent years I have felt that this connection has been lost in the discussion over the “values” voters. As the candidates from both sides of the aisle tour the country this campaign season, let’s make sure that they hear from all of us, religious or not, who believe that “saving lives” is a value worth casting a vote for. ONE is launching ONE Vote ’08 on Monday, designed to mobilize Americans to do just that.

You can watch the forum here.

TAGS: Barack Obama, ONE Vote 08, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Edwards, The ONE Blog