I arrived at work this morning and there was a pile of 2012 Virginia Voter Guides sitting by the door. I grabbed one and was genuinely happy to have a simple bullet pointed unbiased guide to look at that included the VA senate candidates.
Then I actually looked at it and BOOOOOOO, so bias.
First I looked for who was sponsoring it and found listed three Christian based conservative groups, Focus on the Family, The Family Foundation, and the Family Research Council.
Focus on the Family: According to Wikipedia – is active in promoting its socially conservative views on public policy. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations. “Focus on the Family’s stated mission is “nurturing and defending the God-ordained institution of the family and promoting biblical truths worldwide.”Focus on the Family opposes abortion, divorce, gambling, LGBT rights, LGBT adoption, pornography, pre-marital sex, and substance abuse. It supports abstinence-only sexual education, non-LGBT adoption, corporal punishment, creationism, school prayer and strong gender roles. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and social scientists have accused Focus on the Family of misrepresenting their research to bolster FOTF’s political agenda and ideology.”
The Family Foundation: From its own website- “The mission of The Family Foundation is to strengthen families in Virginia by applying founding principles and faith to policy and culture. The organization seeks to establish through citizen advocacy and enactment of Virginia law a safe, prosperous and wholesome climate for families. All of its public policy decisions are based on the principles of life, marriage, parental authority, constitutional government and religious liberty.”
Family Research Council: From Wikipedia – is an American conservative Chirstian group. “The FRC promotes what it considers to be traditional family values, by advocating and lobbying for socially conservative policies. It opposes and lobbies against LGBT rights, abortion, divorce, embryonic stem-cell research, and pornography.”
Then I opened it up and looked at the “issues” listed. Which appear to me to be mostly conservative Christian based agenda items, with abortion listed as the top issue.
The next item that jumped out at me is that it actually tells you how to vote on ballot question #1. “Vote Yes”.
Pretty blunt there.
And lastly, the back cover lists “Sources” which not so surprising at this point, but still sad, are mostly biased. Included are several Christian based sources including Life News and CNS News. It also sites mittromney.com several times. Although it does list the Huffington Post, ABC News, MSNBC and the White House’s website, it also lists itself “The Family Foundation” quite a bit. Can you really list yourself as a legitimate source?
No mater what your beliefs, I think we can agree that this guide is not UN-Biased.
Pretty lame.
I thought I might actually be getting something unbiased and factual that I could actually use to learn from. But it was just more twisted facts and lies. If one candidate was actually straight up and told the full and whole truth, I would be more inclined to vote for them.
I wish candidates would get kicked out of the running for lying. But then I guess we wouldn’t have anyone to vote for.
All Things Krista 