Feb 19, 2018 2 min read

I would like to respond to claims made regarding the upcoming election in  the 18th Congressional District.

Some claim that since Democratic candidate Conor Lamb has no political experience, he is not qualified for office. No one honestly knows how Lamb might vote on a particular issue. He is opposed to the leadership of both parties in Washington, D.C., which isn’t a bad thing.

Republican Rick Saccone, a commonwealth legislator since his election in 2010, has a very distinct record, and claims that he has worked in a bipartisan way in Harrisburg. Saccone’s Harrisburg and his legislative record are not the best examples of bipartisanship. Of greater concern are comments referring to Lamb’s Catholic faith, and that his faith requires him to follow his religious beliefs, even when those beliefs are opposed to the “law of the land.”

I am reminded of a speech by John F. Kennedy that is most inspiring and should be required reading for all public servants. It was given at a conference of religious leaders prior to the 1960 presidential election, when Kennedy was being questioned and criticized for his Catholic faith.

“I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish,” Kennedy said. “Where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

We need leaders in both parties, and at all levels of government, to have good moral compasses. However, personal religious beliefs should not be used to deny another person of their individual freedoms and rights. I trust that is what Lamb believes. I know, from his record in Harrisburg, that is not what Saccone believes.

Gary L. Ford

Washington