Evangelicals Now
<< December 2004 >>

Letter from America

Bushwhacked!

Bush did it. George W. Bush won the White House and US Presidency for a second term.

Not only that, the Republicans increased their lead in both the house and the senate. What's more, Bush won the popular vote (Anoraks Anonymous: the 'electoral college' - the winners of each state - does not always match the popular majority vote) for the first time since his father did the same in 1988. Even more startling, Bush won the largest ever majority of the popular vote in Presidential history. On top of this, against all those who say that gay marriage is inevitable, in every single state where there was a referendum on same-sex marriages the legislation for a traditional view of marriage as between a woman and man only was supported.

Divided society

This has been quite a week for Republicans in America. Democrats, of course, are not so happy. In Kerry's concession speech he acknowledged the victory of the Republicans, but asserted strongly the need now for a united America. For, in one of the most bilious and vicious election campaigns in recent history, America as never before appears a society divided. Bush made the same point in his speech: it is time for America to unite now around his leadership.

Power of values

What is only slowly dawning on the majority of pundits is the new startling power of the 'values' vote, or the religious vote. Bush overwhelmingly received the support of those who go to church regularly. Some statisticians put this 'churched' figure as high as 40% across the nation. On the other hand, Kerry overwhelmingly received the support of those who rarely go to church. The trouble for Kerry was that the 'unchurched', similar statisticians would say, only comes to about 18% of the nation. 'Do the math', as Americans would say: this was an election about religion.

Exit polls showed that while the war in Iraq was a major concern of voters, and the safety of America more generally in the war on terror, the predominant concern for many Americans was the perceived need for shoring up traditional (and by traditional I mean largely 'Christian') values. The unwritten concern here has been the gay agenda to enforce homosexual marriage upon America as an accepted cultural norm. In addition, of course, the old divisive issue of abortion gained Bush votes from ethically conscious Christians. But same-sex marriage may have been the hidden ticket here to explain the vast electoral turn-out from Americans, and even (for this is unusual) translating into a bigger than expected turn-out from Republican as opposed to Democratic voters. Normally big turn-out means big Democratic vote. This year it meant just the reverse. Why? Bush hinted at it in his victory speech: he and his supporters are doing all they can to 'uphold our deepest values of family and of faith'.

Your vote?

Given that - while, of course, Bush is (shall we say) not exactly a popular figure in Britain - it's hard not to feel supportive of a man who is campaigning against brutally murdering the unborn and cynically altering thousands of years understanding of the natural state of heterosexual marriage. Especially because both of these matters are clearly addressed in the Bible. We might not like Bush; we might feel he messed up in Iraq; but, if push came to shove, and we as Christians were asked to vote either for a man who would advance experimentation on the unborn for stem cell research, or for one who would seek to repeal at least the legal extremes of permissive abortion, either for a man who theoretically ('as a good Catholic') was against gay marriage but would constitutionally support it, or for one who principally supported the institution of heterosexual marriage, which way would we vote?

Josh Moody