Mitt Romney, the political chameleon of the GOP, has recently begun trying to woo conservative Christians into his stall. His message; Romney is the best conservative Christian that the GOP has. Now, those of you who are paying attention will notice that Romney is not a Christian. Romney is; of course, aware of this and is doing his best to blur the distinction as much as possible for the average voter. Instead of focusing on the important differences between Mormonism and Christianity he speaks only of the similarities in an attempt to get uneducated voters to believe they are essentially the same.
“The values of my faith are much like, or are identical to, the values of other faiths that have a Judeo-Christian philosophical background,” he said at a campaign event in New Hampshire this month. “They’re American values, if you will.” ~ Source
Adapting to fit the desires of his voters is really just standard operating procedure for Romney. In his 1994 campaign in strongly liberal Massachusetts Romney was a strong gay rights supporter, going so far as to claim he would be better at protecting gay rights than Edward M Kennedy (D). “If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” Romney wrote. “My opponent cannot do this. I can and will.” Today Romney has taken a complete turnaround and is now campaigning on the opposite ideals, even throwing his old buddy Larry Craig under the bus as soon as word came out of his gay sex sting arrest and guilty plea.
This transformation from moderate to hard line conservative is not restricted to just gay rights. He also supported abortion rights and attempted to distance himself from Reagan during that 1994 campaign and voted for Paul Tsongas (D) in 1992. While evolving morals and ideals are understandable on one or two issues, to completely change from one ideology to the opposing ideology is suspect. Combine that with the fact that both stances match the views of his voters and it is strongly suspect. ( Source )
The real question is whether or not conservatives are willing to buy it. They have been starved for a good candidate after holding out hope for Grandpa Fred only to have him take a nap on them. Giuliani is unbearable being a pro-gay, anti-gun, pro-choice conservative on his third marriage (we’re confused too) and has conservative Christians threatening to walk out of the party. So maybe the lack of a better alternative will spell a win for Romney.
At least one ultra-conservative organization has fallen into bed with Romney. He recently won the endorsement of Robert R. Taylor, Dean of the fundamentalist Bob Jones University. Bob Jones University, which gained infamy for its ban on interracial dating, had its pick of rich white guys to endorse and even an ordained minister. However they passed them up in favor of a Mormon, which University President called a “cult” in 2000. (Source)
I guess time will tell if Romney has succeeded in blending in to his target voters enough to gain their confidence. In the mean time Romney is sure spending like a religious conservative. He has spent $21.3 million over the summer while raising only $9.5 million. Looks like the whole fiscal responsibility thing never really sinks in with so called conservatives.
*10/16/07 – William: Edited to fix links *
Just to clarify, there is a difference between “God hates fags” and “God hates homosexuality”.
One position merely states that God dislikes an act, while the other is shifting the object of the hatred from an act to a group of people. It would be like comparing “God hates thieves” to “God hates stealing.” The statements are similar, but the object of the hatred differs.
Thanks for your comment although I will have to disagree. Homosexuality is not an act it is a state of being, a trait, a part of who you are. Being hated for your sexual orientation is the same as being hated for your eye (or skin) color.
If God hates homosexuality then he has to hate the person because that’s what it is, a part of a person, not a choice or action that they have made.
“My theory is that it is because their message is the exact same one as Christian Fundamentalists, just yelled louder and more graphically.” Exactly right, Summer. IMHO Phelps is just pushing the beliefs of Fundies to their logical conclusion in this one area. That is why I believe it is so important for “liberal” Christians to tackle to issue of biblical “inerrancy” head on, as we do at http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/inerrancy .
I pray that people who continutously ignore the meaning of the words that they use will eventually come to the realization that words have specific meaning for a reason.
Fundamentalist means one who adheres to the “fundamentals” of a specific ideology, etc.
The fundamentals of Christ are to Love God with all our heart, mind and soul, and to love each other as God loves us, to love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is what a Fundamentalist Christian believes and adheres to, to the best of their ability with the guidance and leading of the Holy Spirit. If they embrace hate and think they are better than any other sinner, then they are not living as a Christian fundamentalist. They are living according to their own pseudo doctrine.
A fundamentalist adheres to the basic tenets of any given ideology. If the Ideology or belief system is fundamentally flawed then of course the fundamentalist becomes a negative connotation.
And to the woman who feels that God hates homosexual individuals: God does not hate any sinner. He loves each and every one of us and wants all to be saved.
And what you are missing is that, even if a person is genetically pre-disposed toward homosexual relationships, it changes nothing. Sin is sin, and regardless of whether a person is born with more disposition than another, we are all still called to deny ourselves, to deny our sins and choose to obey God. If you think this is unfair, or harsh or cruel…hell is by far and away more horrible than any discomfort or trials a person could ever experience in this life, and Christ died for all of us…but many will never accept His offer of forgiveness and Salvation because they are not willing to admit that what they do is wrong, and God gave us the perfect resource to live our lives by, His word. If we deny that what God calls sin, is sin, then we call God a liar and we separate ourselves from God’s Grace by our own choice of rebellion, and no matter what you may think, a homosexual individual has a choice to reject the homosexual lifestyle and agree with God, to ask for His help to change and to be saved by faith in Christ just as any other person struggling against any other sin.
We are all to abandon our sins. If we admit our sins, and ask Christ to Save us, for His forgiveness and for God’s help in changing us, then we are saved by His power, by Christ’s Goodness, not our own ability. It is a free gift from God, but if we do not admit our guilt, then we call God a liar and cannot be saved until we repent (agree with God and turn away from our sins), and live our lives according to our faith in Christ.