I did a post a while back about some of my political values, but now it’s time to get into some of the nity grity details. I was a member of the NRA a few years ago, but decided about a year ago to let that membership lapse and give my money to other groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists, and American Humanists. As far as candidates I am likely to support I’ve had to prioritize which values and positions are more worth supporting than others, as well as how big the threat is.

The big reasons I dropped the NRA was the candidates they support tend to be of the social conservative variety, not the classical liberal type. They’re usually candidates who are pro-gun owners rights which I like, but also staunchly pro-life, science deniers, and all for legislating their exact take on morality. As far as the candidates on the other side, they’re often pro-LGBT rights, pro-choice, and support the wall of separation between church and state, but they’re also often against concealed carry, in favor of repressive gun control measures, and prefer to fix budgetary issues through taxation alone, rather a more reasonable mix of cutting unnecessary spending while increasing taxes to fund the necessary expenses.

Currently there are no major threats to Second Amendment rights, at least not anything that we haven’t already seen enacted at some point in the last 30 years, but there are lots of active threats to the rights of women, LGBT people, and religious minorities. Blindly following a single party or a single issue is a bad idea, but if you compare how a candidate stacks up against several of your top issues, odds are pretty good that you would find a clear winner worthy of your vote. I think this year I’m going to use a spreadsheet.