Conservative Evangelical Christian voters have come a long way in a short
time. From their nearly unanimous condemnation of Bill Clinton for his
extramarital affairs, a growing number of these "pro-family" voters appear
ready to accept several Republican presidential candidates who do not share
their ideal of marriage and faith.
Among those seriously under consideration by these church-going folks is
former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been married three times and
who had an affair with the woman now his wife when he was married to wife
number two. The second wife, Donna Hanover, once recorded a political
commercial for Giuliani, touting his virtues as a husband. She called him
"honest and very kind" and "this is the kind of man I wanted to be the
father of my children" and "Rudy is such a great Dad." It's on YouTube. In
recent days we've learned from his son Andrew that he and his father are
estranged, but that they're working on it. Andrew says he got his values
from his mother.
Another of the thrice married is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who,
last week, trod the Damascus Road to Colorado Springs. On the syndicated
radio program of psychologist James Dobson, Gingrich confessed that he had
an extramarital affair with the woman to whom he is now married while he was
married to his second wife. Gingrich acknowledged not living up to his own
standards, or God's.
A third Republican presidential candidate is Sen. John McCain, who has been
married twice. He is disliked by many social conservatives more for his
support of "campaign finance reform," which they regard as an attempt to
limit their speech, his work on immigration with Ted Kennedy and past
remarks that some evangelical leaders are "agents of intolerance."
Mitt Romney has the right social conservative views, fairly recently
bringing them into conformity with their own, but to some conservative
evangelicals he has the "wrong" religion. Romney, a Mormon, is the poster
boy for family values: one wife, handsome children, and no apparent personal
skeletons in his closet, but some, not all, evangelicals can't get over the
Mormon belief that Jesus once visited America. They also reject the "Book of
Mormon," which they believe tells "another gospel."
That substantial numbers of conservative evangelical voters are even
considering these candidates as presidential prospects is a sign of their
political maturation and of their more pragmatic view of what can be
expected from politics and politicians. It is also evidence that many of
them are awakening to at least two other realities - (1) they are not
electing a church deacon; and (2) government has limited power to rebuild a
crumbling social construct.