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Supporting the Government 3: The Top 8 Republicans

Last week I looked at the bottom 8 contenders for the Republican ticket for President in 2016. In there, I found that some of these candidates are outright liars and others are viable in the Christian mind. Of course, it all comes down to action while in the Oval Office, but these small snapshots will hopefully give you an idea as to those candidates that might win my vote.

This week, I would like to look at the top 8.

Rand Paul – Senator from Kentucky

People know Rand Paul’s dad, Ron Paul, more than they know of Rand. Rand titles himself as a constitutional conservative and is very much seen as the leader of the conservative-libertarian bloc in Congress.

Out of the gate, Paul has typical Libertarian double-speak. He has come out opposing national laws for same-sex marriage and has literally said that “human life begins at conception and should be granted legal protection from that moment.” But in a turn of events, in March 2013, Paul said that as a physician, there are “thousands of exceptions” to a pro-life stance on abortion. It is this kind of double-speak that shows me he is a liar, but he is someone who will say anything get the vote.

Sorry, Senator Paul, but even before I go any further and waste any more of my time on you, a liar like yourself will not receive my vote.

Mike Huckabee – Former Governor of Arkansas and now TV personality

Mike has been down this path before. He was runner-up behind McCain in 2008. He is the complete opposite of a Constitutional Conservative (which many know as the Tea party). Immediately I see something in Huckabee that I like. He understands something that the Founding Fathers of the country understood, they said we are ALL equal. This means that we all have intrinsic worth and children in the womb have the same rights as children outside the womb. But he did go on to say that he would approve a law that would terminate a pregnancy if the mother is in danger. While that is a gray area for me personally because my feelings want to take over, I understand what the right choice to do is, and that is err on the side of life for both mother and child. This leads to healthcare reform that gives serious attention to coming up with winning solutions for both mother and child in these situations.

I also agree with him on views of same sex marriage and his view that it IS government’s role to legislate morality. The government is required to legislate morality. Don’t we have laws against theft and murder? If so, then we are saying that it is alright for the government to legislate morality in those cases. Why not in the case of same-sex marriage and abortion?

Now, here is where I do have to question Huckabee. In 2007 it came out that he supported accepting illegal immigrants after 3 years of being in the country. However, in 2008, he came out and said that “illegal immigrants must go home and start over.” And in January of this year, he said that we need to allow illegal immigrant children into college despite the crimes of their parents. Now I believe that we need immigration reform, and I agree with much of what Huckabee says about immigration, but his double speak on the issue causes me concern. It is not enough for me to outright call him a liar, because in the full context of those quotes, which I did not put in here, I can understand his position clearly and it seems to follow a biblical worldview. But to say that I am not concerned would be false because it shows he could very easily sway his mind a different direction once elected.

Mike, I would not withhold a vote from you, but I would watch you very carefully in the debates as we get closer.

Dr. Ben Carson – Physician and Citizen Politician

I have a warm spot in my heart for Dr. Carson. When my daughter was born, she had a head deformity. Not severe, but enough that our pediatrician wanted her seen by the doctors at John’s Hopkins neurosurgery department. We set up the appointment and took our daughter and saw Ben Carson! We took along one of his children’s books and asked him to sign it, which he did gracefully. From what I remember of him, he was very soft-spoken, tender-hearted, and easy to talk to. He didn’t rush us as parents and seemed honestly concerned for ours and our daughter’s welfare.

Ben’s view on abortion is that he is “unabashedly and entirely pro-life.” He goes on to explain that he has performed surgery on infants pre-birth and through that has realized that they are “very much alive.”

Ben is also for giving homosexuals rights, but not marriage. He claims, as I believe, homosexuality is a choice, not something we are born as. He did have a time in 2013 when he came under fire for likening homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality. He admitted he took the metaphor too far and apologized publically.

As for immigration, he believes that we should not deport the illegal immigrants, but create a guest worker program for them similar to Canada’s. He does feel that there should be stronger penalties for those who employ illegal immigrants, but that we need to create a program for immigrants to do the jobs that American’s choose not to do.

I am a little concerned with the wording used on his website for faith in our society. He wrote an example of people performing their faith privately to explain his stance. As a Christian, the Bible calls us to perform our faith in the public eye. We cannot be closet Christians. While I don’t believe that a certain faith should be mandated in America, I do believe that we need to be able to practice our faith in the public eye.

Based on my study of Dr. Carson, I would not withhold a vote from him, but I would watch him very carefully in the debates, especially around the topics of faith. I would also watch carefully around abortion because I want to see if his words that he shares on his website are his beliefs in the debate.

Marco Rubio – Senator of Florida

Rubio is very strongly pro-life and has come out saying we need to legislate rights for children in the womb. With regard to gay marriage, he has said that he supports the states right to re-define marriage, but strongly believes in one man-one woman marriage. I find this is a little suspect. To me it sounds too much like the easy way out to have both sides support him and he can, like Pilate, wash his hands of the whole debate.

One thing I found interesting is that he supports a $20 million tax credit to companies that produce G-rated and PG-rated movies. I think that is a great way to show that he believes it IS government’s role to legislate morality. With regard to immigration, he believes in a modified amnesty. They would receive their cards after 10 (or 15, depending on which quote you read of his) years. He also believes, as I do, we need to focus on stopping the future illegal immigrant and stop punishing the current ones.

His faith life is interesting. Being Latino, one would think Catholicism would lead his views, and it does, to a degree. But when he was a pre-teen, he was Mormon and, at 13, convinced his family to convert back to Catholicism.

My concerns with him are more from a scandal standpoint. First he is a member of the Tea Party, an organization that I do not associate with. But a scandal broke a few years ago that he overspent on the GOP credit card, including expenses on haircuts and repairing his family minivan. He also double-billed the GOP for flights that he took. Now he has paid back much of the money, but has refused to pay some back claiming they were legitimate expenses.

I don’t know how I feel about Rubio. I think he is a fairly casual Christian who will use faith as a vote-generator but will leave faith out when it help gain votes. Just because I have a negative feeling in my gut, I will withhold my vote for Rubio until he proves himself more. Overall, it was the scandals that did it for me.

Scott Walker – Governor of Wisconsin

Walker doesn’t post his views to issues directly on his website. They are found in reading various blog posts. And this is not unlike him to avoid issues. He has come out saying he believes in evolution and then ran away from the issue as people asked questions about it until he finally came out with a statement that he believes God created humans but science and faith are not incompatible. While I agree with him that science and faith are compatible, I also strongly believe that if you get the first few chapters of the Bible and the last few chapters of the Bible understood and believe them, then the middle makes sense.

He claims he is strongly pro-life, yet will only approve a ban on abortion after 20 weeks. However, only a month earlier, he said he supports banning all abortions. Typical government double speak.

Because of this, Scott, I cannot vote for you, someone who blatantly lied to the people! You claim to support banning all abortions yet sign the bill to ban after 20 weeks. Liar.

Reject your vote for Scott Walker.

Jeb Bush – Former Governor of Florida

Ok, I have to come out and say it, the name Bush scares the crap out of me! During the darkest point in our American history since the Civil War, I supported what was likely one of THE worst presidents I believe our country ever knew (I think it is a toss-up between Bush 43 and Carter).

In a typical political fashion, you can see the changing of beliefs through the years as a politician ages and gets more ambitious. When he first started, he was quoted saying “Don’t need laws about abortion if we understand about moral absolutes.” A few short years later, he was claiming that he does support abortion for limited cases (rape, incest, etc….). Then in 2012, he came out against the views of the GOP (not always a bad thing, but in this case I believe it is) in saying that we have to change the message in order to build a base among women and minorities.

In January, it came out that Bush said that we should not have rights for LGBT because that approves of sodomy. Yet in the same month, he is quoted as saying that we need to respect same-sex unions and lifelong commitments.

Bush does feel as I do that illegal immigration is not a crime, but an act of serving your family in most cases, to get them a better life. To that, he supports the DREAM act. He has come out saying that the GOP needs to be considered the party of inclusion and acceptance and has started voicing his views which run counter to traditional GOP agendas.

Jeb, sorry. I cannot approve of your stances and you changes. You are entirely too prone to wave in the wind, wherever the votes will fall. For that, Jeb, I must call you a liar and reject a vote for you.

And that brings us to the last name,

Donald Trump – Businessman and television personality

Trump and I don’t believe in much of the same stuff at all. He calls for banning late term abortions only unless the woman was raped or the baby is a product of incest. Even though he claimed the be converted to pro-life.

He has come out saying we need to tolerate diversity, but then not long after comes out saying no partner benefits and gay marriage.

Overall, I could say a LOT more about Trump, but will decline. I am sure you can see where my vote is going, and it is NOT to Trump. You are a wishy-washy liar under the guise of a strong businessman.

Next week I will look at the Democratic contenders for the Presidency of the United States.