As co-founder of the blog Evangelicals for Mitt, Nancy French spent the better part of the past two years trying to persuade fellow born-again Christians to back a Mormon for president. A Tennessee-based author whose main job is raising two kids while her Army reservist husband serves in Iraq, French knew she had her work cut out when she launched the blog in 2006. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that French herself considered the idea of voting for a Mormon more or less sacrilegious.
But after learning of what she calls Mitt Romney’s “heroic effort” to combat gay marriage as the governor of Massachusetts, where the state supreme court had legalized it in 2003, about his opposition to abortion rights and federally funded embryonic stem cell research ”” the product of an admittedly recent ideological conversion ”” and his stances on issues such as terrorism, French was won over.
“My heart changed,” she says.
[blockquote]From the linked piece: famously denounced the Christian right as “agents of intolerance”
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Government is about morals and not religion. Religion is about morals. It should only be in that way which religion come into government. The so called religious right has in effect taken some of the moral discussion out of this years race.
When I vote I look for morals and not religion. Focusing on where someone went to church gave us Jimmy Carter and has no cost us the what I think was the best conservative in the race.
I think that the quote above may have some truth in it after all. It is one thing to be unbending on morals when it comes to voting. But your are not voting to be in communion with this man but rather voting for someone who shares your moral values. In this case we had man who was a preacher and was good on moral values, but who record as a secular leader did not reflect my values on small government, my values on illegal entry into this country, and many other important topics. He cost the nomination for a man whom I agree with at the moral level albeit I have differences in faith.
The so called religious right has shown itself not to be conservative in my thinking. In order to support a preacher who they agreed with on religion, they voted for a man who made bigger government when he was governor. They voted against a man who had a track record of making ground on moral issues in the face of strong opposition. We now have a choice between center and far-left. Some would say the choice is center-left and very-far-left.
The 2008 Presidential Nomination – the major contenders:
1. [i]Rudy Giuliani[/i]: NY Liberal. But at least he is honest about it.
2. [i]Mitt Romney[/i]: Massachusetts Liberal who becomes a born-again conservative just before the primaries. Whatever.
3. [i]Ron Paul[/i]: A libertarian in disguise. Though libertarians can be entertaining. they should be kept very far from power.
4. [i]John McCain[/i]: The guy who ran for President by attacking the base of his own party. If there is one Republican candidate who has gone out of his way to spit on Evangelicals, that candidiate would be John McCain. I remember to 2000 campaign like it was yesterday.
Which leaves…
5. [i]Mike Huckabee[/i]. Jimmy Carter redux?
Are you kidding me? I almost didn’t vote. If I were McCain, I would pray that Hillary is the Democratic nominee. She is the one thing that could motivate evangelicals to vote for McCain.
carl
btw, note the complete lack of the word ‘Mormon’ in the above. It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I would vote for a Mormon. Or a Roman Catholic. Or a Jew. They all fall generally within the purview of Western civilization. But would I vote for an atheist? Or an avowed agnostic? Or a Muslim? Now that’s an interesting question.