A fair amount has been said about retooling the environmental message to appeal to voters with traditional moral standards with the idea that liberal candidates would sway voters over into their camps.  I have gone into the voting booth more than once determined to vote for environmentally friendly candidates and been unable to because of their "pro-choice (and by extension, infanticidal)" stances.

Think what the choice would be for you, if the only pro-environmental candidate would save forests and owls, but exterminate blacks and homosexuals.  That is the nature of the choice facing pro-lifers, which include Catholics.  A recent statement made on the Vatican email publication listed the environment right along with stem cell issues as an extension of the Catholic pro-life stance.

As long as candidates are committed to abortion on demand, a large contingent of the pro-environmental vote will be lost and it seems to me that Democrats are inextricably committed to the pro-choice stance right up to and including infanticide, and it is hopeless for liberals to think of tapping the true strength of the pro-environment vote.

Could it be possible to re-frame these issues in terms of self interest, profit and patriotism as someone recently suggested?  Moral conservatives are not going to flock to the environmental cause unless the other issues are taken out of the equation.  

Peggy Murdock

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To view the Sierra Club List Terms  Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp