And You Thought Sister Mary Ignatius Was Strict: Not Allowed to Vote In Indiana: The Nuns’ Story
May 7th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
Photo I.D.’s were required in order to vote in Indiana in the primary yesterday. A strict new law.
But what if you can’t easily get a photo I.D.?
What if you are a citizen, have lived an exemplary life, have stood up for the lives of others, have agreed not to be paid for your work lifelong, have agreed to wear funny clothes and interfere in society’s gears when justice to the soul is concerned…
and you can’t get a photo I.D. to assert your right to vote?
What if it’s because you’re 98 years old and your comrades, sister nuns who also were not allowed to vote in Indiana yesterday because they too didn’t have photo I.D.s…. don’t drive. Like many nuns. They don’t drive because they live where they work, and their work is unending. There’s no 9-5 amongst nuns. They don’t have a lot of time to find someone to drive them to wherever they might get some sort of photo I.D., they’d be leif to ask anyone to take time from their own work to do so,
and nuns, even the most elderly ones, haven’t the same courtesy of ’step to the head of the line’ that we accord dignitaries.
12 nuns from St. Mary’s convent at South Bend (Sisters of the Holy Cross) were turned away from the polls, for not having the picture that said they were who they said they were.
Ironically, they were turned away by a sister nun who knew them, but regardless, and properly so, had no choice, as said sister was acting as a volunteer at the voting precinct.
The sisters turned away were in their 80s and 90s. Some brought their passports with requisite photo, but the passports were long expired. I don’t know about anyone else, but I just went through intense rigmarole to get my own passport reissued and I could have practically graduated with a degree in engineering for as long as it took the government to issue it.
Sister On Special Assignment as Voting Precinct Volunteer said the nuns “weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law.” “You have to remember,” Sister McGuire said, “that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”
I only have this to say: These nuns and others like them who are elderly and in many ways are naive about the world yet very sharp about the ‘other world,’ and yet have dedicated a lifetime to serving day in and day out, who have sacrificed so much, deserve to be treated far more decently than this. Far more.
And as for the photo I.D. law, I see the reasons behind it. But also,
there has to be reasoned application of such a law, so that when one casts huge nets meant to catch the common fish, they do not also catch dolphins… dolphins are mammals, not fish. Dolphins are disabled when stuck in nets underwater, not allowed to surface.
It makes no sense to deny the innocent their hard-won freedoms whilst trying to entrap the others.
Indiana, for your penance, that’ll be ten Our Fathers, twenty Hail Marys, and a passel of rosaries. And an apology to the sisters from the Governor would be nice, since Mitch Daniels (R) is the one who signed the law to begin with.
But then, nuns being nuns, they’d likely say, no apology needed. They’d rather just have the prayers… And the right to vote not made labyrinthine… et– in nomine Domine, hosanna, in excelsis, and in the name of God, with high praise.
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CODA
from AP:
“Indiana’s photo ID law is the strictest in the country. The Republican-led effort was designed to combat ballot fraud, said supporters, who also have acknowledged that no case involving someone impersonating a voter at the polls has ever been prosecuted in Indiana.
“The state’s American Civil Liberties Union sued, calling the law a poll tax that disproportionately affected minorities and elderly voters, those most likely to lack such identification. On April 28, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that the law did not violate the Constitution.”
A Hoosier’s rights under the new law, include being able to cast a provisional ballot and obtain a proper ID within 10 days so that ballot would be counted later. But, in Indiana, as in many other states, the MVD takes far longer than 10 days to mail out the required key to the kingdom. So, no dice.
**Disclosure: The Sisters and Brothers of the Holy Cross, the group noted in this article, were traveler-teachers to a tiny school that gathered farmer-immigrant-merchant class kids from the boonies long ago. This order of priests, brothers and nuns taught me there, and at other proximate locations, for the better part of 12 years. Like many consecrated who live in other convents and seminaries across the world, they are some of the dearest, funniest, uncanny people you’ll ever meet.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 10:50 am and is filed under Indiana, Primaries, Newsweek Blogitics, Political Correctness, Secularism. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
