In case you missed it, there is an election coming up.  And, if you happen to be Catholic, your choices just got a lot easier. 

Just eliminate voting for any candidates who is pro-choice or believes that gays should have equal rights.  At least, that’s what the Cardinals say.

Via Politics Daily:

Just ahead of Election Day, one of the most influential American churchmen in the Vatican, Cardinal-designate Raymond L. Burke, has warned Catholic voters in the United States that they may never vote for politicians who support abortion rights or same-sex marriage, position usually associated with Democratic candidates.

Burke, an outspoken conservative and the former archbishop of St. Louis who will be made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI next month, made his remarks in a videotaped interview in Rome with Thomas J. McKenna, head of Catholic Action for Faith and Family, a conservative lobbying group based in San Diego.

In the interview, which Catholic Action taped on Oct. 20 and started promoting Thursday on YouTube, McKenna asks Burke, “Is it ever licit for a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, a candidate who either in a platform or who has voted, has shown himself to support that. Is it ever valid?”

“No,” Burke answers. “You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion.”

His rules on same sex marriage are just as rigid, claiming the cloak of “good discrimination.”

“Where there is unjust discrimination — for instance, where you say that a fellow human being, because of the color of his skin, is not a part of the same race as someone, say, who is a Caucasian — that is a kind of discrimination which is unjust and immoral,” Burke said.

“But there is a discrimination which is perfectly just and good, and that is the discrimination between what is right and what is wrong — between what is according to our human nature and what is contrary to our human nature. So the Catholic Church, in teaching that sexual acts between persons of the same sex are intrinsically evil, are against nature itself, is simply announcing the truth, helping people to discriminate right from wrong in terms of their own activities.”

But in case you are one of those people who do not believe that one religion is a homogenous vote, here’s 5 Myths of the Catholic Vote, from Catholics for Choice:

MYTH ONE: Catholics are more conservative than the rest of the electorate
REALITY: Catholics’ opinions largely mirror those of the rest of the electorate

• Sexually active Catholic women older than 18 are just as likely (98%) to have used some form of contraception banned by the Vatican as women in the general population (99%). (National Survey of Family Growth, 2008) 
• Catholics (69%) are as likely as people with different religious beliefs to support medical research using embryonic stem cells left over from in-vitro fertilization procedures: Protestants (74%), other Christians (66%) and the overall population (72%) have broadly similar views. (Harris Interactive, 2010)

On these and other issues, we see that Catholics make up their minds independent of the bishops or the loud noises from the blogosphere. 

MYTH TWO: All Catholics oppose abortion
REALITY: Catholics are prochoice

• When Catholic voters considered healthcare reform in 2009, and were asked about access to abortion, they supported health insurance coverage for abortion in many circumstances: when a pregnancy poses a threat to the life of a woman (84%); when a pregnancy is due to rape or incest (76%); when a pregnancy poses long-term health risks for a woman (73%); when test results show a fetus has a severe, abnormal condition (66%); and whenever a women and her doctor decide it is appropriate (50%). (Belden Russonello & Stewart, 2009)
• Only 14% of Catholics in the US agree with the Vatican’s position that abortion should be illegal (Belden Russonello & Stewart, 2009) and a poll released by the bishops themselves in late 2008 showed just 11% of US adults support the bishops’ preferred option: a complete ban on abortion. 

The reality is that like people of other faiths and no faith, a large majority of Catholics can see circumstances in which abortion is an acceptable or even necessary moral choice. 

MYTH THREE: Catholic teachings on reproductive health issues are rigid and unchanging
REALITY: Catholic teachings on abortion and family planning are more nuanced than the bishops claim 

• Although the Catholic hierarchy says that the prohibition on abortion is both “unchanged” and “unchangeable,” this does not comport with the actual history of abortion teaching. At the outset, the church hierarchy only opposed abortion because it suggested illicit sexual activity. Their current position evolved in later years. 
• Church teachings on moral decision-making and abortion are complex. In Catholic theology there is room for the acceptance of policies that favor access to the full range of reproductive health options, including contraception and abortion.

The reality is that Catholics can, in good conscience, support access to abortion and other reproductive health services and affirm that they can be a moral choice.

MYTH FOUR: Catholics do what their bishops tell them to
REALITY: Catholics do not want to hear from their bishops about politics

• Only eight percent of Catholics believe that the views of the US bishops are “very important” in deciding for whom to vote. Seventy-three percent of Catholics believe they do not have a religious obligation to vote on issues the way their bishop recommends and 69% of Catholic voters do not believe they have a religious obligation to vote against candidates who support legal abortion. (Belden Russonello & Stewart, 2008) 

These numbers are crystal clear. Catholics are perfectly capable of making up their own minds about whom to vote for and can and do, in good conscience, cast votes that their bishops might oppose. 

MYTH FIVE: Catholics are obsessed about abortion
REALITY: Abortion is not the only issue that concerns Catholics 

• An overwhelming majority of Catholics (92%) rate the economy as very important; almost as many (91%) say jobs are their top issue in the coming election. These numbers are nearly identical among all major religious groups and the overall population (90% for the economy and 88% for jobs). 
• Social issues, such as abortion, are much farther down the list with fewer than half of Catholics and Americans (both 43%) rating abortion as “very important” during this election cycle. (Pew 2010 Annual Religion and Public Life Survey)