The Watershed Issue

Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd endorsed Barack Obama today. Just another in a series of events that has made this last month a politically eventful one. Polls, if one believes them, say that Barack Obama has an approximately 16 point lead over Hillary Clinton. How does that affect me, and others who are looking for a conservative leader in the Whitehouse after the election? If Hillary Clinton is thought to be very liberal, Senator Obama has demonstrated that he is as far to the left as they come. He has a more liberal voting record than any other candidate who has run for the Democratic Party. He was even endorsed on January 28th, by Senator Ted Kennedy, the liberal's liberal.

As Senator Sam Brownback recently stated, "Let's just say that when Hillary Clinton is the more conservative Democrat, we should all be afraid!" I don't know about being fearful about it, but it does make me pause. We are looking at a phenomenon which probably has not occurred in this country before, at least that I can tell. Once Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama, he came under fire from the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women. A statement from that chapter included this quote:

"This latest move by Kennedy is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation — to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a president that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’”

How misguided that statement is. I thought the idea was to vote into office, a person who, man or woman, is best qualified to lead this free nation.Voting for Hillary Clinton because of her gender is as senseless as voting for Barack Obama for his eloquence of speech. The material question is, "How will they lead?"

I don't want Hillary Clinton in office, and I don't want Barack Obama either. I don't believe that either one of them have the necessary ability to truly lead this nation. I do believe that they have the political connections and following that are necessary to be able to surround themselves with more savvy and experienced advisers to help guide them through the trials and pitfalls of being a president, but is that what we want? Do we really want somebody who has to discover how their leadership style or lack thereof affects the nation in wartime? That would be a detriment to our nation, and to the troops who are overseas, fighting to maintain our safety and freedoms.

Not to mention, what is the deal with their stance on gay marriage and abortion rights? I can understand people who claim to be Christians saying that they are against lowering taxes. That would be an economic strategy. I can even understand them saying they are against gun ownership. That is an opinion, albeit I believe a misguided one. But giving special rights to practicing homosexuals? Saying that it is alright to kill the unborn? It takes some real ignorance of the Scriptures, or some serious twisting of them to endorse those practices and call one's self a Christian who believes that the Bible is the Word of God.

Okay, Hillary Clinton says that she has always been a "praying person", and a member of the United Methodist Church since her childhood. I don't know what that means, but I know what it can mean. I grew up in the United Methodist Church and was a member until I was about twenty. Believe me, I have met people who have attended the United Methodist Church for most of their lives, who do not know Jesus, who even walk around and routinely take His name in vain. If anyone thinks I am being judgmental, that's fine. Judge this statement for its truth: if Jesus is precious to you, you do not walk around and say His name in vain. You do not consciously blaspheme Him on a regular basis. You just don't do it.

There are tons of people who attend mainline Christian churches because, "It's what you do." I still have family and friends connected with that church and the influences it has are not just locally shared. There is little consistency of thought. Even the local congregation is all over the map on abortion, gay rights and other moral issues. So I get Senator Clinton a little more than I do Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has been a member of the United Church of Christ, since his twenties. Discerning his beliefs are a bit like trying to nail honey to the wall. In a "Call to Renewal" conference in June of 2006, he stated: "You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey." Well, I can't jump all over that, but Jesus is not just an ally. He is our Sovereign Lord and Savior.

In a book he published titled, "The Audacity of Hope", Senator Obama wrote; "I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex—nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.”

Obscure line? Is that like the obscure lines from the Old Testament that Jesus referenced to refute the deceptions and temptations of Satan in the desert? No. I am afraid Senator Obama is saying something else.

All Scripture is God-breathed. It is there for a reason, and none of it is obscure. A passage may seem obscure to us, but that is only because we are finite beings and our ability to understand the Scriptures is as limited as we are. We should never say that any part of His word is obscure, and therefore less worthy than another part of Scripture to give us the necessary direction for our lives, by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Am I nit-picking here?

How nit-picky should we be about protecting the lives of the unborn? Some babies are left alive after failed attempts at abortions. Some of these are very late term abortion attempts. For that reason, the "Born Alive Infant Protection Act" --Public Law 107-207, was drafted to preserve the lives of these innocent babies. It has been reported that Barack Obama has voted against the version of that law in his home state of Illinois. One can only expect him to continue to enforce that position on a national scale if he is elected president.

And then there is the war. I don't like the war. When we were in Iraq for just about a week, I watched an exuberant press group looking for a victorious pronouncement from President Bush, and talk about how fast we would certainly be done there, and the troops would be home. He instead, gave them a dose of reality by saying that they had to realize that this would by no means be a short-term effort. They didn't listen. While I have been disappointed by our President in some areas, I think that his perceptions there have been realistic, despite all the rhetoric from armchair quarterbacks on the other side of the aisle. They do not have a clue about the amount of stress it takes to hold up as president in a wartime environment, and hold a nation together when others are trying to tear it apart. We cannot let a handful of thugs on the other side of the planet determine the limits or existence of our freedoms. Our soldiers in Iraq are standing in the gap for this. They are laying their lives on the line for this.

I do not believe either Senators Clinton or Obama have a good understanding of these things. I believe Hillary Clinton really wants to be the first woman president. So what? Plenty of others have wanted the office. I believe that Barack Obama believes that what he would bring to the office would be a positive "change". I disagree with him.

No, I don't want either one of these candidates in the White House. What we need is someone who is experienced enough to be able to walk into the white house, "good to go," and who will protect not only this nation at home and abroad, but the rights of the unborn who, yes, live in it too.

Of course, had I ended this post with the last sentence, many would have assumed that I was speaking of Senator John McCain. Many conservatives don't actually regard him as truly conservative though. At this point, I am not sure that I can place him in that category in my mind, because of one, single issue. Abortion. It is the watershed issue for me, and I believe for millions of Americans today.

One will have a tough time pinning Senator McCain down on this issue too. Barring any blunt disclosures which might be revealed at some future debate between Senator McCain and whichever of his opponents wins the Democratic nomination, it is very difficult without study, to grasp where Senator McCain stands on the issue. One is left to go back and review not only his voting record, but to read much of what he said about abortion during the years prior to his run for the White House in 2,000. Those statements are not very reassuring. He appears to have bought into a lot of the machinations that were proffered to the public by abortion rights advocates when Roe Vs. Wade was being decided.

He appears not to want Roe Vs. Wade overturned, and he also appears to wish to go back to the spineless stance on abortion that the Republican Party clung to during the 1980s. That is so out of character for a man like him. He is so strong in so many ways, but to just wimp out and go back to a day when it would be recognized that party members hold differing views on the issue. So what? That's just the abortion version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," or rather, "It's a troubling issue, so don't bother me." Nonsense. Those who are for abortion are wrong. There should be no bipartisanship on this issue.

I most likely would have voted for Alan Keyes, had he made it far enough into the campaign, but by the time things wind around to my state in the nominating process, it has all but been decided. He is certainly as qualified as many of the other candidates, and in my mind, more so by virtue of the fact that he plainly addressed the issues definitively and unashamedly. Pity. I am very tired of choosing between the least offensive of two candidates, who tread so carefully around the questions put to them that they fail to answer them, but this country has long ago boiled it down to two parties. I may very well be one of those in the masses who "gives his vote away" to a lesser known candidate when the election comes. This will depend upon just how forthcoming John McCain becomes in the months to come.

I simply cannot give my vote to someone who is for abortion, or who sits atop the political fence on that issue. To do so would be to endorse abortion, or to say that it isn't a serious issue. I can do neither.