Still More Politics...

I know that politics is overly discussed on Headlife, but something Ronan said in his previous post has gotten me thinking. Are my religious beliefs the single most important factor to me when I vote? I would like to think so. But then, looking at how I voted in the last election, I voted an almost complete Democratic ticket. Why? Frankly, because I think that the Republicans have too much power in Utah. But what has this to do with the way I approach my religion? I didn't stop to think about most of the candidates as people, just as names. I tend to vote for women and perceived ethnic minorities before I vote for the minority that I belong to (White Male). Most of the time, I do not know or care anything about candidates beyond that name. I have heard people making the argument that an uninformed vote is worse than a vote not cast. But who has the time or ability to check all the candidates to see if they are people of integrity as is recommended in the election year letter from the First Presidency read each November? So, once again, I will be ending my post with a question. I assume that we are all mature enough to respond to this one reasonably. In the interest of full disclosure, I will attempt to explain how my religious beliefs influenced my vote. I am curious as to how it influenced all of yours. For clarification, this is not meant to be an attempt to be persuasive, just descriptive. I am curious how religious belief ultimately played a factor in your votes; I am not curious to know how you think I should have allowed it to play a factor in mine (I guess I should say that you could comment on this, but you would be missing the point of my post). I tend to side with the Dems on most issues because I think that governments should stay out of most moral decision-making (war in heaven and all) and I think that there should be an attempt to make sure the underrepresented are insured a fair shake by the government (all the business with widows and orphans in the OT). That said, I did ultimately vote for the anti-gay marriage amendment in Utah (sorry, Becky's brother), in part because of what modern prophets may have been counselling on the subject and in part because I believe that the government has a vested interest in promoting heterosexual marriage and family over other options. To be honest, I am unsure I made the right choice there. I also think that we have stewardship duties over the Earth's resources that place me in the middle between environmentalists and corporate interests (but I tend to lean more to the environmentalist side). I think that war is occasionally necessary, but usually unjust (this war teeters between these two options for me). I feel like national standards on irreversible issues like abortion and capital punishment are too lax (i.e. it should be very hard to get either an abortion or an inmate killed and currently neither seems to be all that hard to acheive). I hope this is broad enough spectrum to give some idea of where I come from. So, I think a lot of this comes from my religious beliefs. How did your religious beliefs affect your vote? ps. I voted for Nader because neither of the other two candidates seemed to address enough of the "important to me" issues in ways that I liked and I figured that I might as well give a vote to 3rd parties.