The unconscious of the Party

Well, as the Democratic National Convention also revealed, add another marquee Democrat to the list of blind faithful—a notably religious one, another former Democratic president: Jimmy Carter.

Carter has said many times, including very recently, that he can’t see how or where or why God or Scripture could ever justify abortion. That’s for sure. The Georgian Baptist has scoured his Bible on that one, and indeed found no justification for killing unborn human life. And Carter certainly never stumped for gay marriage.

And yet, there was Jimmy Carter, at the convention last week, stumping for Barack Obama, a president with a party platform that supports these things, and then some. To raucous applause from the “pro-choice” faithful, Carter gushed that Obama has given everyone an “equal chance in life,” creating a “fairer, stronger, and more inclusive America.”

The 87-year-old said he will be casting a vote for Obama “with confidence and conviction,” knowing that Obama has the “right policies” to lead America to a “better future.” [Source]

There are a lot of things that annoy me about Jimmy Carter – other than that I voted for him when I was 18. Mostly though what annoys me is the fact that he never really stood up for life in a meaningful way.  He could have been the conscience of the party calling them back from the brink of full throated apologists for the culture of death. He might have been able to assert some leadership as a former Democratic President, instead he will mention that he is pro-life at times – yet it never stops him from endorsing increasingly pro-abortion candidates. This type of behavior from pro-life Democrats is pretty much the norm with few exceptions such as Rep. Rebecca Hamilton.

Now if only this type of behavior was restricted to Democrats.  Unfortunately excuse making on the Republican side can be just as egregious.  Often social conservatives are treated as an embarrassment and many pro-life issues are not even addressed.  The issue of contraception is one that the GOP won’t touch despite the fact it is a gateway to abortion and that some forms of contraceptive are abortion-inducing.  When Sen. Santorum would bring this up there was pretty much a collective shoooshing for him to be quiet about such issues.  What was the last time you heard a “pro-life” politician talk about the numbers of children killed via IVF?  Then there was the recent defense of the rape and incest abortion exception.  Whenever it comes to fully following through on pro-life convictions it becomes more about political expediency than doing what is right.  We point out the hypocrisy of pro-life Democrats voting for Obamacare and then push through a presidential candidate with no pro-life trail consisting of any action other than words. We make fun of how President Clinton focused-group everything and then make pro-life policy decisions with a concern towards polls.  Certainly we can move forward incrementally in creating a culture of life – but we will achieve not even that when we compromise the protection of life and advance the fiction of the 100% pro-life politician.

It is one thing to vote to reduce evil, the problem is that we are minimizing the extent of the evil.  Politics might be the art of the possible, but it is easy to forget that with God all things are possible – even being fully pro-life and supporting those that are the same.