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TBC Newsletter | |
| December 1999 |
INTERFAITH ALLIANCE: PETITION FOR GREATER CIVILITY IN AMERICAN POLITICS |
As a concerned American and person of faith and goodwill, I urge all candidates for public office - including candidates for President of the United States, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, governorships, and state and local offices - to implement and honor the following Framework of Civility.
The Framework of Civility
• Talk honestly about your beliefs, motivations, and purpose in running for office.
• Endeavor to present clear, accurate proposals regarding issues that are based on the facts as you understand them without attempting to mislead voters regarding your public record.
• Welcome and seek to optimize opportunities to present in open forum your platform, policies, and issue proposals.
• Refrain from using deception, half-truths, falsification, or innuendo in describing your opponents.
• Immediately and unilaterally repudiate any such actions conducted to your benefit by other individuals or organizations.
• Ensure that your campaign organization has in its possession documents supporting factual claims about you or your opponent’s record or background.
• Seek to heighten the level of discourse presented to voters with the intent of increasing their knowledge of the issues and your positions on those issues throughout all aspects of the campaign.
• Reject degrading, disparaging, or demeaning descriptions or visual images of your opponent.
• Reject personal attacks, innuendo, or stereotyping in describing or referring to your opponent.
• Avoid all references, characterizations, or suggestions intended or likely to demonize or dehumanize those holding opinions different from yours.
• Conduct all aspects of your campaign by using as guiding principles the betterment of the democratic process in this country and the desire to increase the integrity of the electoral process.
• Assume full responsibility for the words and actions of your campaign staff, volunteers, surrogates, and other individuals and organizations working on your behalf or seeking to influence the election in your favor.
• Publicly and unequivocally reject words, images, and/or actions that incite hatred or fear against others.
• Refrain from using the rhetoric of civility merely for political effect, opting instead to incorporate the meaning and goals of civil discourse into your actions and statements.