Sean Romer of Seminole County is no fan of lockdowns.
The business consultant, a Catholic who attends mass every day, was out of work for months after the COVID-19 shutdown earlier this year. Many of his clients were in the hotel and restaurant industries hit hard by COVID-19.
“My business ran out April 1 and I was out of work for five months,” he told the Pinellas Times.
Recently, has work started to return.
“We have to support ourselves,” he said. “The way we do that is by earning a living. The government cannot indefinitely deprive people of their livelihoods. No one has that authority.” [4:37]
He understands the serious nature of COVID-19 and the need for safety measures.
“We have to be careful and prudent and respectful of the authority of the government by all means,” he said. “At the end of the day, [the] government gets money through taxpayers who are earning income. If they’re not working, there’s no funding for the government either.”
Universal lockdowns are damaging, Romer said.
“To me, it seems that more people are being harmed by the lockdown than by the virus,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the right priority.”
He believes Catholics have a duty to vote as an expression of faith in the public domain.
“Our form of government is democratic — it’s a representative republic, so that’s how we participate — we educate ourselves about political candidates, their policies and platforms, and we vote for ones that [are] either Catholic in their outlook or closest to it," Romer said
Economics is a factor in political choices, Romer said.
“But there is a hierarchy to it,” he said. “Moral, ethical, foundational, must take precedence over economics,” he said. “A practicing Catholic should never say, ‘It’s the economy stupid.’ That was [Bill] Clinton [stratageist James Carville], but for us, it’s always moral/ethical considerations, primarily.”
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