What a nightmare this election must be for "evangelical voters." More than once, I have written here about some ridiculous thing Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said. Today, I find myself sort of agreeing with at least one of his statements:
If a candidate cannot keep and honor marital vows, why should voters believe that he or she would show greater fealty to an oath of office?
Perhaps Dr. Mohler will join me in supporting John Edwards, fellow Christian who has been married, happily, to the same women for 30 years.
In Mohler's further assessment of the field, he expresses what must be keeping the religious right up at night:
On the Republican side, the picture is very different. John McCain has been married twice, as has Fred Thompson. Both divorced their first wives and married younger women. In McCain's case, the divorce and remarriage took place many years ago. Thompson's is more recent. Meanwhile, Rudolph Giuliani is on his third marriage and the circumstances of his second divorce are certain to raise particular concerns, as is the fact that he lived for at least some time with a gay couple while between marriages. Did he think New York was in France?
Add to this the fact that Mr. Giuliani's adult son is, or at least has been, ardently opposed to his candidacy and it becomes clear that Americans are waking up to a new political culture. Among the three leading Republican candidates, only Mitt Romney presents a picture of marital fidelity, with his wife and five adult sons all eagerly supportive of his candidacy. Evangelical voters, who in recent cycles have seen the Republican Party as the party of family values, are left wondering what happened to the family values of its leading candidates and why the only leading candidate that represents the right family and marriage profile is a Mormon.
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3 comments:
I too am shocked to be agreeing with most of what Mohler says, until the very end, when he uses the phrase "the right family and marriage profile." What kind of "profile" is he talking about, and why is a person's "profile" so important? I mean, has Mohler reduced everyone else (and their relationships) to a set of measurable quantities, that can be pieced together in a "profile?" Too much marketing research informing his theology and politics, I think!
The answer is , yes, yes he has.
Scary stuff for Halloween, no?
It would make things easier for us voters if marital fidelity were in fact some guarantee of ability to govern. Unfortunately it is not.
At this point, the candidate's political philosophy AND his/her ability to actually implement that philosophy if elected is of paramount interest to me. That's why I am a "party voter."
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