Most of us learned in public school how a symbiosis is a “close biological relationship between different species”. Most of the time these relationships are co-dependences that benefit both species. Sometimes they’re fatal. Tragically, as a growing number of Christians have tried to assert their influence in political arenas, the accelerating ties between those who call themselves Christians and most Republican “leaders” dependent on their votes, has devolved to the detriment and mutation of both.
As a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican for more than 40 years, the most disappointing events of the last 20+ years has not only been the detestable conduct of highly educated fellow Republicans “leaders”, but how tens of millions Christians have thrown their support behind those who perpetrate such conduct. Never could I have imagined brothers and sisters in Christ, from across a variety of denominations, choosing to turn a blind eye towards lying, cheating, stealing and sexual abuse, so they could win restrictions on gay marriage and abortion.
Equally tragic is how millions of Christians, having chosen restricting LGBTQ rights and abortion as cornerstone polices, either cut themselves off from the implications of their support for Republican candidates advocating for these restrictions or, even worse, saw those implications and chose to turn a blind eye toward Republican policies thoroughly antithetical to the Christian beliefs they espouse. If this sounds like some surreal, false narrative, here are a few examples.
We need only look back to the year 2000 when 40% of George W. Bush’s vote came from evangelical Christians. Then in 2004, Karl Rove masterminded getting even more Christians to support Bush by putting anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballot in 11 states, including here in Ohio.
And what did Christians achieve with this drive to ban gay marriage? They achieved a president lacking in longsightedness and intellectual prowess, a president sometimes asleep at the wheel, and on whose watch unfolded 9/11, an unnecessary war in Iraq, soaring deficits and the great financial crisis of 2008.
In addition, all the efforts to outlaw gay marriages proved ineffective and hurtful. From 2000 through 2006, the number of same-sex couples grew from 594,000 to 780,00. After that, the number of same-sex households grew to 1,200,000 in 2021. In addition, the number of adults who “think same-sex couples should be recognized by law as valid” grew from 35% in 1999, to 71% in 2023. The misguided efforts of Christians to control the moral choices of adults, much like efforts to control drinking during Prohibition, proved counterproductive.
Much like Pope Francis, while I don’t encourage gay lifestyles, I refuse to condemn them and believe those who have chosen to be LGTBQ deserve to be treated with respect and live with dignity. Christ, who largely ministered to those rejected by society, would have done no less.
With respect to abortion, in 1973, when Roe was first enacted, there were 616,000 abortions. By 1990, the number of abortions peaked at 1,427,000. By 2021, abortions fell back to 626,000. Tragically, since the Dobbs decision rescinded the Constitutional right to an abortion, the number of abortions in 2023 rose to 1,023,000.
While I personally believe all non-medically necessary abortions are a tragic loss of life the facts above indicate that efforts to outlaw abortions, have been largely ineffective and counterproductive. This begs the question of what is the best way to reduce abortions? Perhaps the answer lies in continuing to do what turned the tide against rising abortions after 1990, which was to educate women on the implications of an abortion, educating teens about avoiding unwanted pregnancies, and supporting women with unwanted pregnancies. Perhaps instead of pouring our resources and energies into supporting candidates to impose restrictions on adult women with early term pregnancies and laws that fail to provide flexibility for medically necessary conditions later in pregnancies, we ought to double down on pouring our resources and hearts into loving and supporting women struggling with an unwanted pregnancy.
Beyond Christian efforts to win restrictions on gay marriage and abortion, tragically, millions of Christians have been deceived into supporting MAGA Republicans who continue to work on taking healthcare away from tens of millions of people, cutting funding for public education, protecting gun rights at the expense of safety for children and teens, abandoning democratic allies and aligning with aggressive authoritarians, abandoning protections for the good earth God gave us, and abandoning the rule of law and voting rights.
Given the huge stakes of the upcoming election on our country, our world, and perhaps most of the all the reputation of the faith we espouse, perhaps it would be worthwhile for all of us to push back from whatever political alignment we thought supported our primary concerns, take a closer look at the breadth of policies and conduct of candidates, and reflect on who really most closely aligns with our most fundamental beliefs.