Patricia A. Nugent: Losing My Religion (or Why Single-Issue Voting is a Sin)

After reading my recent post on Vox Populi (The End Times? October 5, 2014), an activist-friend asked me to write an essay about single-issue voting. Although I laughingly responded, “I don’t take requests,” upon further reflection, I feel compelled to share this vivid memory of why I believe single-issue voting is a danger to the socio-political fabric of our democracy. So in anticipation of the upcoming below-the-radar mid-term elections, here goes:

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I vividly remember the day – no, the minute – I left the Catholic Church forever. I hadn’t planned on it being my last Mass; but, once this happened, I knew it was.

The final straw wasn’t the opulence or the rumored pedophilia. It wasn’t even the misogyny. It was the blatant disregard for the Sermon on the Mount.

My grandmother had been raised in a convent in Poland; my mother said the Rosary daily. I…