The following is an excerpt:
Although the presidential election has been dominated by the contest between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, there are also third-party candidates courting the votes of Catholics who don’t support either of the major-party candidates.
America’s third parties are small, but they are not insignificant. In the 2016 election, approximately 5.5 million Americans voted for one of the two major third parties, the Libertarians and the Greens. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson ended with 3% of the popular , the most of any third party since Ross Perot two decades before. The Green candidate, Jill Stein, got 1%.
Both those parties are contesting the presidential race again, and their candidates are on the ballots in enough states that they could theoretically win the election. Several other third parties — including the American Solidarity Party, which has attracted the support of some prominent Catholics — are on the ballot in at least five states.
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The Greens: Care for the Poor and Environment
Voting Green is a “sound moral choice,” according to Andrea Merida, the campaign manager for Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins and his running mate Angela Walker. Merida is also a parishioner of St. Ignatius Loyola in Denver.
Asked about the party’s pro-choice stance, she suggested that its economic policies would reduce the demand for abortion. “Every day, working-class people are faced with reproductive decisions that are made under duress from the economic injustice they face daily,” Merida said.
She said voting for the Green Party, which she also described as “socialist,” allows one to live the “entire Gospel of Life” through “responsible stewardship of creation, to justice through reparations for descendants of enslaved people and indigenous nations, to a solid pandemic relief plan that includes Medicare for all, to peace and an end to the new nuclear arms race, to upholding the dignity and worth of each human life at work and in society.”
She linked this platform with St. Teresa of Avila’s call to Catholics that theirs “are the eyes with which [Christ] looks compassion on this world.”
“For Catholics that are concerned with the entire spectrum of human life, the Hawkins/Walker campaign provides the avenue through which we can work in concert with others of good will for a more just and compassionate society,” Merida added.
Link: https://www.ncregister.com/news/third-parties-court-catholic-voters
National Catholic Register
