It has been well-documented that the GOP’s right-wing base has been less than impressed with the crop of candidates seeking the party’s presidential nomination.
While some of the candidates have garnered support from a few right-wing leaders of varying status here and there, the recent controversy regarding General Peter Pace’s statement that homosexuality is immoral offers a telling example of the dilemma the GOP frontrunners are facing in trying to secure the Right’s support.
Following Pace’s statement, right-wing organizations unleashed full-throated defenses and accolades for Pace, yet the Republican nominees, with the notable exception of Sen. Sam Brownback, universally declined to come to his defense.
And that has not gone unnoticed by Vision America’s Rick Scarborough:
Senator John McCain declined to express an opinion, other than to say that the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy is working. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who claims to be a convert to the pro-family cause, said Pace should “show more of an outpouring of tolerance.” It has nothing to do with tolerance, but our government officially condoning evil.
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The general response to Pace’s comments is the latest sign of this nation’s ongoing moral decline. Even a decade ago, it would have been unthinkable for a presidential candidate to openly contradict the Bible, by declaring an act condemned therein “not immoral.”
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America is sadly in need of renewal. Pray that there’s at least one candidate on the 2008 ballot who unabashedly embraces and represents Biblical values.
Scarborough’s anger over this might be cause for concern among those seeking the GOP nomination, especially since, as we noted last month, Scarborough and Alan Keyes are gearing up to launch a “Seventy Weeks to Renew America” project which seeks to “enlist 100,000 Values Voters … who will pray for national renewal and who will vote their Christian values on election day 2008.” As Scarborough stated in his previous update:
On March 19 I will convene a meeting with several key pastors from across the nation to discuss and pray for this national project.
That meeting must have been a rousing success, because the number of voters they are looking to mobilize has now doubled:
On July 4 of this year Vision America will embark on its biggest challenge to date, in an effort to move 200,000 Christians to vote their values in elections all across the nation. I believe that Christians need to be reminded that it is a sin not to vote, and that the absence of a clear moral leader at the top of the ticket is not an excuse to withdraw. Far too many Christians look at the magnitude of the problems in America and shrink back, thinking that there is nothing that can be done. We will be reminding Christians through our campaign – which we are calling “Seventy Weeks to Save the Nation” – that our duty is not to be pawns of a political party, but to be faithful to the Lord Jesus. We are working now to enlist 70 churches to host a “One Day Crusade to Save America” in their church.
Scarborough and company are apparently so pessimistic about their chances of getting a “clear moral leader at the top of the ticket” that they have all but given up and intend to simply “concentrate on local issues where our efforts can make an immediate and measurable impact.”
