Folks who know me know that I’m a fairly conservative guy. I tend toward the right on many issues. I would like to see limits on abortion rights. I oppose gay marriage (though not gay unions), and I support a strong military. However, I also oppose corporate welfare. I’d like to see a much more open immigration policy with amnesty and a fast track to citizenship for productive illegal immigrants already here. I don’t think our government can sustain huge spending increases without raising taxes. I think the death penalty is morally repugnant and indefensible. In short, I feel just about equally alienated by Democrats and Republicans.

The Democratic Party has tended to embrace progressive agendas at odds with traditional values. They support public policies that tend to separate sex from procreation. They contribute to the breakdown of traditional families despite ample evidence that society benefits most from stable, two-parent families. They have openly and aggressively flouted traditional Judeo-Christian values in favor of unfettered individualism.

Republicans, meanwhile, have paid lipservice to traditional values and politically exploited the Christian right while doing virtually nothing to advance causes dear to the hearts of Christians. They have cosseted the rich and powerful, increased the economic burdens of the poor, and defended the greed of corporate officers while castigating welfare mothers and impoverished immigrants for trying to make ends meet. In addition, over the last eight years, they have involved the United States in an unnecessary war and used national security as a pretext for limiting our constitutional freedoms. They have insisted that mere accusation is sufficient warrant for holding foreign nationals in prison for years without due process, that international conventions regarding humane treatment of prisoners of war do not apply to “enemy combatants,” and that interrogation procedures recognized the world over as torture are not “really” torture after all. They have made us offensive to our allies.

President Bush has done what I had not thought possible: he has made Bill Clinton seem like a decent fellow.

What’s a conservative Christian to do? Keep the self-righteous hypocrites in power? Or vote in the openly wicked? Of these two evils, it’s increasingly hard to know which is the lesser.