2008 might seem like an eternity away, but with new presidential candidates throwing their hat in the ring every day, it’s time to start sifting through the stack. According to Joe Carter, there’s one issue that should trump all others:
I am an unabashed single-issue voter — and that issue is justice.
The justice I’m referring to is that which recognizes human dignity as the foundational principle of freedom and human flourishing. Although the terms are not interchangeable, I believe that the term “sanctity of life”, as defined by philosopher David Gushee, could serve as the standard definition for human dignity within liberal democracies:
The concept of the sanctity of life is the belief that all human beings, at any and every stage of life, in any and every state of consciousness or self-awareness, of any and every race, color, ethnicity, level of intelligence, religion, language, gender, character, behavior, physical ability/disability, potential, class, social status, etc., of any and every particular quality of relationship to the viewing subject, are to be perceived as persons of equal and immeasurable worth and of inviolable dignity and therefore must be treated in a manner commensurate with this moral status.
It’s worth reading the whole post.