Presidential candidate
Kamala Harris continued her efforts to woo churchgoers on Sunday, with an appearance at the Church of Christian
Compassion in Philadelphia. Her last-minute, “souls-to-the-polls” campaign in
historically black churches comes as up to 40 million self-identified
Christians plan not to vote in the upcoming election, according to a recent George Barna
survey. Harris’s church-focused push began three days after she ejected two rallygoers who exclaimed,
“Jesus is Lord.”
The Harris campaign has
struggled to sell churchgoing voters on their candidate, in large part due to
the fact that they lack a product this audience wants. “The sole issue that
Kamala Harris has been running on” is abortion, said David
Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview,
on “Washington Watch” Friday. “This really is the only issue [on which] she has
been consistent and clear and energetic.”
At a characteristic rally
in Texas on Friday, Harris took the stage with pop megastar Beyonce “where
pretty much … the main issue that they campaigned on is abortion,” Closson
described. “In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first nominee to come out publicly
and say she would be in favor of getting rid of the Hyde Amendment,” he added.
But “Hillary Clinton’s position on abortion looks tame in comparison to the
Harris-Walz ticket. They are the most ardent, energetic [abortion] supporters …
to ever run for president and vice president of the United States.”
Harris underscored her
commitment to absolute abortion in a recent sit-down interview with NBC’s Hallie
Jackson. When Jackson asked what concessions Harris would consider as president
to win codified abortion protections from a hypothetical Republican-controlled
Congress, Harris first avoided the question so obviously that Jackson asked the
question again, “So [it’s] a question of pragmatism then: What concessions
would be on the table? Religious exemptions, for example, is that something
that you would consider?” Harris finally replied, “I don’t think we should be
making concessions when we’re talking about a fundamental freedom to make
decisions about your own body.”
The question was designed
as an easy lay-up. Harris was given an opportunity to position herself as a
pragmatic, bipartisan negotiator, while at the same time planting a flag for
hypothetical negotiations next year. On the second pass, Jackson lowered the
difficulty further, signaling that this was a “question of pragmatism” and
proposing an example of a relatively painless concession that Harris could
latch onto. Yet Harris refused to budge even an inch.
“In one sense, she’s been
consistent,” responded Closson. “When she was a senator, she voted against the
Pain-Capable Act that would have provided protections for babies when they can
feel pain. She voted against a piece of legislation that would provide legal
protections for babies who survive botched abortions.”
“If Harris is in the Oval
Office on January 20th, the abortion lobby will have the most energetic
supporter that they have ever had,” he added. “Clearly, according to Kamala
Harris, even our first freedom is not as important as the sacrament of
abortion. … Abortion has been elevated to this almost quasi-religious position
in the modern-day Democratic Party.”
Abortion is the lead role
in a cast encompassing the entire Sexual Revolution. Closson noted how Harris
and other progressives in Congress support the poorly named Equality Act, a
bill “that would prioritize these contested claims of sexual orientation and
gender identity” so that they would take precedence “whenever they come into
conflict with a religious liberty claim.” When Harris first ran for president
in 2019, she wrote on a candidate questionnaire that
gender “transition treatment” was “a medical necessity,” which taxpayers should
fund for prisoners and illegal immigrants in federal custody.
This issue is less popular
than abortion, so it isn’t one Harris likes to talk about. Yet Jackson gave
Harris an opportunity to stake out a more moderate position in this election,
asking, “Do you believe that transgender Americans should have access to gender-affirming
care in this country?” Harris responded, “I believe we should follow the law.”
Again, Jackson gently pressed and Harris again deflected, “I’m not going to put
myself in the position of a doctor.”
The sexual libertinism of
the Harris campaign’s closing pitch is underscored by a pro-pornography
advertisement that Democrat-aligned super-PACs intend to run in the seven key swing
states in the final week before Election Day. In a desperate attempt to scoop
up disinclined male voters, the ad suggests that Republican politicians will
ban pornography. (This is untrue; some GOP-controlled state legislators have
merely required age verification to prevent minors — that is, non-voters — from
accessing pornographic sites.)
Can you imagine if Harris
brought this pitch to the pulpit? “Vote a blue ticket. We’ll keep porn legal.”
The parents training their 10-year-olds to pay attention during “Big Church”
would be outraged. Miss Tamara, the semi-retired potluck hostess in the stylish
hat, might faint right there in the pews. But the recently divorced young women
— perhaps some with children — whose ex-husbands refused to kill their sinful
addiction might be the most grieved of all. These are, admittedly, stereotypes;
in reality, a shift in trends means that young men are
more likely to be in church than young women.
“It’s really frightening
how many of these issues directly oppose biblical teaching,” responded Family
Research Council Action President Jody Hice. “And they’re entrenched and
embracing those things.”
“We just need to be really
clear as Christians,” declared Closson. “There are issues of clear biblical
morality on the ballot: abortion, sexuality, marriage, a host of other issues.”
The Bible addresses these fundamental moral issues in multiple places, but
Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth may be the most succinct: “Do you not
know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be
deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men
who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians
6:9-10).
“Why do we care about
politics? Why do we need to be out there voting?” Closson continued. “One, a
love of neighbor. … Can you say that you comprehensively love your neighbor if
you’re not engaging in the process that affects our basic rights and liberties
and our freedoms?” A second reason, he added, is stewardship. “God calls us to
be faithful stewards of everything he’s entrusted us with. And I think for
those of us … who live in the United States … we need to be good stewards of
our vote.”
It’s clear that Vice
President Harris is making a pitch for churchgoing voters. It’s less clear
whether it will succeed. It may come down to whether churchgoers want to buy
the vision of America that Harris is selling. After Harris’s second deflection
on the question of abortion concessions, NBC interviewer Jackson gave a
response that may prove ominously fitting, “I will move on. But I don’t know
that I heard a clear answer from you on the issue.”
Joshua
Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
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