And so does Trump. And by eliminating abortion rights, and stopping the proliferation of LGBTQ intrusion into our culture, he will "make America great again."
Get ready for what will be part rant, part sermon, part Bible lesson, part common sense. That's all coming.
A Faulty Perception of "Abortion Rights" With Hot Button Words Like "Baby Killer" Applied
I'll get back to the "proliferation of LGBTQ intrusion" in a few paragraphs. But let's start with the elimination of abortion rights. I hope we can clear up a lot of ignorance.
Most Evangelicals who have made this their top political issue have almost no understanding at all of what happens medically when a law is written that essentially dictates how a medical procedure can be performed. The only thing that comes to their mind is that an abortion is murdering the life of an infant, because life begins at conception, and abortion is nothing more than birth control.
Does life begin at conception?
That would be an exclusively religious perception, if it is true. However, in Evangelical doctrine, any assertion of the truth of a statement must be supported by a correctly interpreted scripture, applied according to its context. And there is no specific place anywhere in the Bible that makes this statement and declares it to be true. There are, in fact, very few places where there is any kind of teaching on when human life actually begins. There are a couple of examples where a child in the womb was identified, or, in the case of John the Baptist, "leapt" for joy when Mary came into the presence of her cousin Elizabeth, John's mother. But there is no conclusive support for a doctrine stating that human life begins at conception. It is inferred, but inference is not authoritative in Evangelical theology. So they have come to a doctrinal conclusion without sufficient evidence to support their claim.
Is all abortion performed exclusively for the purpose of birth control?
This would be so much easier if that actually were the case. Unfortunately, it's not, and that's why the simplistic "ban" of abortion that most Evangelicals are seeking is an impossible issue.
Abortion is an invasive medical procedure. And any time such a procedure is regulated by law, it removes all of the medical benefits the procedure was developed to deal with. That's exactly the aspect of this that Harris' campaign has been demonstrating, by their use of examples. They're not showing mothers who wanted to get an abortion because the pregnancy was unplanned and unwanted. They're showing examples of women who couldn't get the medical care they needed to save their life because doing so involved removing the fetus to stop the spread of sepsis or some other potentially fatal infection. But the restrictive abortion bans in the states that passed them since the Roe v. Wade decision was made have not taken that into consideration.
This occurs in about one out of every four pregnancies, not an insignificant number. That's way too many women to put at risk for the government to control how, or if, a medical procedure can be performed. It should be up to the family members, husband and wife, to make the decision about what happens at this point, not the government. As long as there is a necessity for an abortion to save the life of the mother, in a grave and tragic situation, then it cannot be legislatively restricted, even if this kind of decision only represents a fourth of all abortions. If just one mother's life is at risk, then a ban is not worth the cost of a life.
And while smart-ass retorts are not the point here, the fact that the mortality rate among women with pregnancies gone wrong in these states has soared since the bans were put into place makes those legislators and governors "mother murderers," right?
A More Thoughtful Approach Which Takes Constitutionally Guaranteed Freedom of Conscience Into Consideration
Kamala Harris is exactly right when she claims that putting a mother in a situation where her life is in danger, and a doctor will not provide life-saving care for fear of being sentenced to life in prison is immoral. She's also right in saying that this is a choice which is a matter of conscience, involving the mother, and her pastor, rabbi, priest or imam, not the government. Determining at what point life begins is a matter of individual conscience. Believing that life begins at conception is solely a religious belief, not a scientific conclusion, nor something on which everyone agrees.
Personally, I believe an abortion should not be used as birth control, but should only be performed in cases where the life of the mother is in danger. That's based on my own convictions, which are derived from my Christian faith. But, as a male, I'll never be in position to have to make that kind of decision. And when I have been involved in decisions about my wife's health, I've left those up to her, since she is the one who must live with whatever consequences result. The complications of the presence of a reproductive system in a woman's body make her health care more complicated. That is not the domain of government.
And the fact of the matter is that the life of the mother doesn't really appear to be a consideration at all, as women have been denied care altogether when reproductive health is at stake in many of these states, left to bleed out and die in hospital parking lots because no choice is offered, as doctors fear being imprisoned for life under the penalties. That's not a pro-life position.
Trump's Position is Not Pro-Life
Those who hang on to their support for Trump because, well in spite of all of his immorality, lying, cheating and general worldliness, he's still pro-life are going to be sorely disappointed by this information they have been deliberately side-stepping. Trump is not pro-life.
His position is that abortion legislation should be decided "in the states." Falsely claiming that "everyone wanted this to go to the states, that's what they said, the Democrats, the Republicans, wanted the people in the states to decide," he said first of all that he was "fine with it" if a state wanted to make abortion legal, as long as the people had a chance to vote for it.
"We were kind of surprised at some of the conservative states," he said, referencing pro-choice referendums that have overwhelmingly passed everywhere, including Ohio, Kansas and Kentucky, among others. "But that's OK, if that's what they want."
And during the debate with Harris, when the subject of a six-weeks limit on the window for getting an abortion for birth control purposes, he said "six weeks is not long enough." That's exactly what he said, and it's just as clear as a bell right there on video.
Trump's abrupt shift in position, while at the same time duplicitously lying to his core followers about his choice of three justices on the Supreme Court who did overturn Roe, which he takes credit for, is just one more example of the man's dishonesty and lack of integrity. He's been told by his campaign managers that his support for overturning Roe v. Wade is at the top of the list of reasons why a clear majority of voters, over 67% in the cases where it's been on the ballot, are opposed to his re-election. So he had to come up with this "they wanted it in the states" nonsense to try and counter that, and in so doing, he was willing to throw his Evangelical supporters under the bus, because he thinks they're losers and suckers.
And frankly, if any of them keep supporting Trump after this, it would be difficult to deny that.
LGBTQ "Rights" Are Not Being Forced Down Anyone's Throat
After we clear out some ridiculous conspiracy theories, such as your little boy going to his kindergarten class in the morning, returning in the afternoon as a little girl, because he got a sex change operation at school, is not true. That's really very understated. Believing something like that is beyond stupid and ignorant, but I want to keep this civil, and it's hard not to just come apart at the seams over the ignorance a statement like that represents. No wonder people think conservatives, many of them also Christians, are gullible and feather headed idiots.
Every American's personal freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. That includes those who are of a different race or ethnicity, religion or denomination, level of income, level of education, whose family doesn't have one white dad, mom and two kids. It means that an atheist has the same rights as the pastor of the country's largest megachurch.
No one is forcing anything down anyone's throat. The Constitution guarantees the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That does not have to occur within your personal frame of reference or convictions to be legitimate. But I have a word here for my Evangelical friends, to read, and to apply as they would something they believe to be divinely inspired, inerrant, infallible, and the written "word of God."
"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:36-40
"You have heard that it was said, 'love your neighbor and hate your enemies.' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your father in heaven." Matthew 5:43-44
It might be kind of difficult to love both your neighbors and your enemies, and then advocate for taking their rights away because their life is lived in a different way than yours is, or their skin color is darker, or they are lesbian, gay or transgender. I don't see any exceptions to this principle anywhere in the Bible. If there's something sinful about the way they've chosen to live their life, they need to resolve that between themselves and God. It seems that our responsibility, which is actually a demonstration of the sincerity of our own faith, is to love them the same way we love ourselves.
Whether a person is gay, lesbian, transgender or bi is, frankly none of anyone else's business. If that's sinful, it's not anyone's place to determine whether it is or to pronounce judgment on them, according to Matthew 7:1-5. To step into their life, or to advocate for some kind of persecution as a result of their life is tyranny. They answer to no one, out of their free will, other than God. But however they decide to live their life, that has no effect on anyone else. We are all free to live the life we choose, and whether or not others are gay, lesbian, or transgender is not tyranny to us.
It's a fact that religious liberty and the constitutional provisions for a free conscience benefit white, conservative Christians more than any other group of Americans. There's no persecution or tyranny at all, and any claim that there is should be accompanied by proof.
There is no Christian Justification For Casting a Ballot For Trump
In 1998, a prominent, well known Evangelical pastor, Dr Adrian Rogers, went to his pulpit and preached a sermon he called, "Does Character Count?" It was a Christian argument, using the scriptures, against casting a ballot for Bill Clinton, basically disqualifying him based on his immoral behavior more than on his positions on issues, such as health care, which many Christians supported.
If those statements and arguments applied to, and disqualified Clinton as a viable President, then they haven't changed, and they apply to, and disqualify Trump as a viable Presidential candidate.
It's because of Trump's lack of character that this Christian won't vote for him or support his run for office. Along with that, his incitement of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, his opposition to Constitutional democracy, his openly immoral behavior, including multiple adulterous affairs and his rape of E. Jean Carroll, just about everything he did in his first, failed term in office, his insistence on maintaining worldliness and immorality as his "brand," his claim that he hasn't done anything requiring God's forgiveness because he "doesn't see God that way," his current tariff and economic policies, his intention to cut Social Security and Medicare, his flip flop on abortion from pro-life to pro-choice and his horrendous lack of knowledge of women's reproductive health care, and his racist bigotry and misogyny, are the main reasons this author, who considers himself Christian, has not in the past and will not now cast a ballot for Trump, or for any other Republican who supports him.
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