By GLEN BIEGEL
July 31, 2026 – This is my closing argument for why voting is your duty. Every election cycle, we’re told the stakes have never been higher. This time, that’s not hyperbole. It’s a description of what’s actually on the table.
Look past the ads and the slogans, and you’ll find cultural questions underneath nearly every issue: What is a man, a woman, a marriage, a child, a family, a church, a nation?
The political left isn’t just proposing new policies. It’s proposing new definitions, or no definitions at all, for the things that have anchored human life for millennia. Sex is now fluid. The unborn are not persons. Marriage is one lifestyle option among many and a sad choice for women. Church is a private hobby, tolerated but irrelevant. Family is whatever arrangement an adult prefers. Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it: institution after institution, redefined, diminished, or dissolved into ideology.
Here is what’s really at stake: joy and purpose.
Joy comes from living out who we actually are. A man normally finds joy in leading, providing, protecting, building: being a source of order and strength for people who depend on him. A woman usually finds joy in being loved, cherished, and in being the heart of a home. Marriage brings joy because it’s the total gift of self to another: a covenant, not a contract, that meets our deepest need to be known and trusted.
Church and faith bring joy because they give us something no politician can: eternal hope.
Purpose follows the same lines. Family gives purpose. Faith gives purpose. A community at peace, rooted in a shared culture of responsibility and excellence, gives purpose. Strip these away, or hollow them into ideology, and people don’t become free. They become adrift.
We’ve read this story before. In Brave New World, marriage was dissolved, children were manufactured and joyless, and citizens found their only comfort in entertainment and distraction, nightly doses of noise to numb the emptiness where family, faith, and meaning used to live. Sound familiar? Swap “soma” for five hours of streaming dystopias, and the picture is uncomfortably close to home.
This is the real dividing line between left and right. On the right, for all our disagreements, the door stays open to every source of joy and purpose God built into us: faith, family, marriage, fatherhood, motherhood, children, community. On the left, all of it increasingly funnels into one channel: the party, the ideology, the cause.
Everything else is negotiable, revisable, or expendable.
That is why this election, like every election, is not just about policy. It’s about whether we preserve the conditions under which joy and purpose can still be found, or whether we let them be redefined out of existence, one institution at a time.
Vote for joy. Vote for purpose. Vote like the meaning of your life depends on it, because in a very real sense, it does.
Glen Biegel is a technology security professional, Catholic father of nine, husband to a saint, and politically active conservative.
11 thoughts on “Glen Biegel: Why we vote”
That’s effen vile Beigel. No wonder christians have been persecuted.
Beyond the logical flaw (ad hominem) and the implied threat (or explanation/justification of violence), I do have a couple questions. Why does one group, at their own behest, experiencing joy or purpose in a way you find vile, threaten you or justify their dehumanizing? As it sounds like you are comfortable forcing your values on others with violence, how long do we Christians have before we will be brought to heel, in your opinion?
You’re reading WAY too much into my comment.
Or maybe the truth is that you are reading way too much into his comment?
Lame comment for someone with a double doctorate degree Dr.Singh.
I don’t think I’m reading too much into your comment. You claim I have said something vile. You claim the vile approach to joy and purpose is the reason Christians have deserved persecution. I imagine you don’t like being called on explaining yourself or reflecting on how this justifies harming others.
Do you no longer consider what I have said as vile? Do you no longer assert that Christians deserve perscution for this approach to life? If so, we can depart as fellow travellers through life.
.Salvation for his kind can only come through intervention from GOD. This can happen, but only when the request is made, so may I start with, God, please change Evan’s heavy heart away from the dark and bring him into the light, thank you, Amen
Glen: No no no. I did not claim your approach to joy is vile. Christians deserve ridicule, but not persecution. I did not claim that you DESERVE persecution, I merely provided an explanation of WHY christians have been and are persecuted. You’ve called upon me to explain myself and I’m happy to do so. My mission is to expose dogmatic thinkers to the success and freedom of critical thinking and the scientific method.
Here’s some more thoughts.
Here’s an explanation of why I used the word vile to describe your view which is actually the christian view.
1) You wrote: ”underneath nearly every issue: What is a man, a woman, a marriage, a child, a family, a church, a nation?” These are christian political trigger points. There are tons of other cultural questions we all grapple with: how do we treat the homeless; how do we treat pets; which animals can we kill and by whom, when and how; how much $ should I give to charity; what creates and maintains integrity. And so forth. Your trigger points are all very important, but as a set, they are largely restricted to the political ideas of christians.
2) Your second paragraph about the Left creating new definitions is offensive. The subtext is that if anyone DOESN’T adhere to the trigger points, they are bad bad Leftists. Fact is, there are different ways of being an American citizen, like our family configurations are not the Norman Rockwell version. It can be messy and complicated. “[D]iminished, or dissolved into ideology”. No, just different.
3) Your paragraph about the real dividing line between right and left is lithic and unbending. Adhere to the trigger points of the Right or else, and as leftists they are defined only by “politics and the party, the ideology, the cause.” You suggest these Leftist words are very very bad: “negotiable, revisable, or expendable.” You think they are bad, but I like all three and their specificity to navigating a world with different people.
4) Here’s a final quote that suggests a wee bit of hypocrisy. You wrote, “Joy comes from living out who we actually are,” Unless, your a Muslim, gay, queer, Hindu, or atheist (me!).
Evan,
Thank you for explaining. The point of the column was to highlight ideas the left has attacked. It’s meant to point to a fundamental rift that has opened between the sides over the last 20 to 50 years.
1. This is a red herring. The left and right don’t disagree on how to treat pets, or on helping the poor (though they often disagree on who should do it, and why). An article is supposed to be a discussion of a larger problem.
2. This article is a caution against the left’s use of toxic masculinity, its denigration of femininity, and its undermining of the family, of children, and of faith (of any kind) as sources of joy and purpose. To deny that the left has attacked all of these sources of meaning that most people rely on is to deny reality.
3. Your response here is your lens, and it sounds Marxist: there is always an oppressor and an oppressed, they war against each other, and only one can win. Christians and non-left people are multicultural. The left is monocultural (see the attacks on Sophie Cunningham). If you don’t find joy and purpose in the things I mentioned, that’s fine. But you are projecting your own hatred onto me. This piece contains none of what you’re describing, and your claim is simply projection in the psychological sense.
4. I have not denigrated or attacked any of those lifestyles. Again, that’s projection. You considering me vile does not mean I consider you vile. It does not mean I want to limit your sources of joy the way the left has undermined our most fundamental sources of joy for decades. This article isn’t claiming these are the only places joy and purpose can be found. It’s about sources of joy that are under attack, the very attack you’re accusing me of making when you’re the one making it.
Thanks glen for that thoughtful response . busy today. I’ll respond tomorrow/Wednesday
Glen, I suppose we could continue trying to intellectually determine the sources of joy, but it would be impossible to have a cogent argument with you because of these statements:
“ the left’s use of toxic masculinity”. Podcaster Pete Hegseth and Trump’s GI Joe AI tough guy mock ups come to mind. Maybe there is some Leftist that you could identify.
“denigration of femininity”. Maybe just let women decide who they are rather than an old white guy patriarch.
“undermining of the family”. Maybe let people decide what their family looks like.
“Christians and non-left people are multicultural.” That’s totally bonkers Glen.
“The left is monocultural”. I’m embarrassed for you.
“ sounds Marxist: there is always an oppressor and an oppressed, they war against each other, and only one can win.” Ever read the Bible Glen? It chock full of battles and wars and oppression and hatred and murder. It’s human nature to hurt each other.
I don’t hate you Glen, honest. You’re intellectually plugged up and there is little point continuing our discussion, but I think you mean well.
Glen: You’re right.