As regular readers already know, I generally vote for Democrats. This isn't universal, but the handful of votes I've thrown to Republicans or members of the Communist Workers Party aren't worth worrying about.

Still, there are times I can't vote for the Democrat in a race. I do have a few hard and fast rules when it comes to casting a vote.

1. I will not vote for anyone who makes it known that he or she does not believe in evolution.

I have had some friends who claim this is a form of religious bigotry on my part, but I know a few folks who attend fundamentalist Christian churches and still hew to the Darwinian side of the debate. Despite what some folks might claim, it is possible to be a sincerely religious scientist. One just has to accept that science and religion occupy separate spheres.

Science deals with provable fact. Evolution has been proven more times than almost any other human theory. The mechanics of evolution are still under debate, but that's kind of like wondering whether George H.W. Bush won the 1988 presidential election because of Lee Atwater's ads (Willie Horton, etc.) or the general ineptitude of Michael Dukakis's campaign. It doesn't matter. The fact that Bush won the election is indisputable.

Matters of faith, by definition, deal with things that are not provable. The existence of God is not provable by human means. The stories in the Bible (or the Koran, or the Torah, or...) were written by human beings. To claim infallibility for any human work, no matter how sacred, sounds dreadfully blasphemous to me. But then, I'm not a believer.

Getting to the point, though, denial of evolution by a politician displays either a complete lack of intellectual curiosity or a cynical exploitation of ignorance. Either is the sort of thing that we don't need in a leader. Not even in a dogcatcher.

2. I will not vote for anyone who attacks the religion, race, gender or sexual orientation of another person.

I'm not religious, but I do believe in the First Amendment and its endorsement of freedom of religion. I find the origins of Mormonism to be a bit odd, and I think that Scientology is a scam, but I don't have any problem with Mormons or Scientologists (or those sad folks who worship at the Temple of Set, for that matter) holding public office. And I certainly don't think there is any room for personal attacks on the religion of any candidate.

I think we're mostly past the "you can't vote for her because she's a woman" thing, but it's pretty damned hard for an out-of-the-closet gay or lesbian to win office in most parts of the country. The only good reason for this is hatred, both perceived and real. It's time to get past the hating, folks. Really.

3. I will not vote for a one-issue candidate.

For example, while I think that testing in our schools is utterly out of control, I won't vote for a school board candidate whose only issue is opposition to testing. There are a myriad of issues that come up in front of our elected officials, and if I know only one thing about any candidate, the truth is that I don't know anything. I will vote for people who don't agree with me on a particular pet issue of mine as long as I like the way they approach the rest of the issues.

And that's about it. I suppose my criteria have a liberal bent (and, to be sure, my judgment of particular issues falls more to the left than the right), but I think most voters who view the suffrage process as something more than a sporting contest or shouting match would agree. Even on the evolution thing. After all, if you believe that dinosaurs once roamed the earth, you believe in evolution--one way or another.

There are serious issues facing our nation, and a lot of us don't agree on the ways to address those issues. It's quite likely that the people who disagree with me will see their candidates do much better than mine this time around. That's okay. When the people speak, our leaders must listen. Good leaders, though, know when to lead rather than follow. We'll see how that works in the next two years.

So go out there and vote. That's what America is all about, when you get right down to it.

Jon Worley once voted for a candidate whose slogan was "it was powder, man, not crack!"