John MacGovern in 2018 VT Senate race


On Abortion: Don't require churches to provide birth control to staff

MacGovern says there is also a crisis in moral leadership in the US. He opposes Pres. Obama's administration's decision to require religious institutions to provide services that violate their deeply held moral values. He was referring to a requirement that insurance companies representing institutions such as churches provide birth control services even if those institutions object to birth control. MacGovern calls it "an assault on our cherished first amendment right to religious freedom."
Source: Wall Street Journal on 2018 Vermont Senate race Nov 1, 2012

On Budget & Economy: Budget deficit is a moral issue as well as economic issue

He says the federal budget deficit has the country teetering on the brink of a "fiscal cliff" and that it will cripple the United States unless it is reduced.

The situation is more than an economic issue, he said. "It's a moral issue as well. Our irresponsible national government is saddling our grandchildren with the responsibility for paying what we are irresponsibly borrowing to spend today."

Source: Wall Street Journal on 2018 Vermont Senate race Nov 1, 2012

On Abortion: Religious liberty trumps contraception health insurance

On the contraception issue, MacGovern writes on his website, "As hard as it is to imagine, we are facing a full frontal assault on our religious liberties. The Obama Administration has issued a mandate to force religious institutions to buy health insurance that covers 'free' provision of services that violate their deeply held moral values. This is an assault not only on our religious institutions--it is an assault on our cherished first amendment right to religious freedom."
Source: SevenDaysVT.com on 2018 Vermont Senate race Mar 9, 2012

On Corporations: Don't demonize private sector that produces jobs & growth

MacGovern's attack on Sanders is veiled. On his campaign site, MacGovern writes that America stands at a crossroads. Down the first road is "the demagogic decision to demonize the private sector and the producers of jobs and growth in the economy, using the rhetoric of class warfare to seek to raise their taxes and increase the costly regulations that make their life more burdensome."
Source: SevenDaysVT.com on 2018 Vermont Senate race Mar 9, 2012

On Foreign Policy: Developed energy projects in China and Southeast Asia

MacGovern told the Boston Globe in 1985 that he attended Catholic school in Rome before enrolling at Dartmouth, where he studied Chinese. His campaign bio says MacGovern went on to help develop energy projects in China and Southeast Asia as a partner at the Greenwich-Chartwell Group. "John brings a unique ability to confront one of the greatest challenges facing the US economy--our relationship with China," he writes on the website.
Source: SevenDaysVT.com on 2018 Vermont Senate race Mar 9, 2012

On Principles & Values: Raised on an organic communal dairy farm

According to the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine profile, MacGovern grew up on a dairy farm that "bore a striking resemblance to a hippie commune. Children wore robes, milked cows, tilled an organic farm." MacGovern told the magazine: "The goal was to be totally self-sufficient. There was no contact with the outside; no newspapers, no radio, no television."

MacGoverns' parents belonged to the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to the magazine article, which is a Catholic sect founded by a Jesuit activist who was ultimately ex-communicated. MacGovern's father died when he was young, the article says, and his mother became a nun within the order. "Which might not have been as traumatic as it would have been in a secular context," the article's author writes, "given that the order's common practice was to dissolve the parental bond early anyway."

Source: SevenDaysVT.com on 2018 Vermont Senate race Mar 9, 2012

The above quotations are from 2018 Vermont Senate race: debates and news coverage.
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John MacGovern on other issues:
Abortion
Budget/Economy
Civil Rights
Corporations
Crime
Drugs
Education
Energy/Oil
Environment
Families
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Govt. Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Jobs
Principles
Social Security
Tax Reform
Technology
War/Peace
Welfare
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Page last updated: Dec 01, 2021