Given the choice this year between voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, I have decided to vote for Vice-President Harris, rather than not vote at all or spoil my ballot.  No doubt, some of my evangelical brethren will cast me as an apostate or consign me to the outer darkness.  As it is, they are siding with a narcissist who is a convicted sex offender, whose only association with Scripture seems to be selling Bibles at exorbitant prices to pay for his criminal lawyers and golf courses (one of which contains the remains of his late wife.)

One reason I will vote for Harris is that at the top of the ticket, neither party has a true pro-life candidate.  To Harris, abortion is something she believes in and an area that government should keep out of.  To Trump who doesn’t care one way or another, being anti-abortion is a strategy to win power and a fetus is nothing more than a poker chip.  One minute he is taking credit for ending abortion in America (Dobbs v. Jackson), and the next minute he’s saying that abortion may be entirely appropriate if it is the states that decide, not the federal government.  So, which is it?

I’ve searched to see how other Christians weighed in on abortion.  In March 2012, one-time President Jimmy Carter said during an interview:

I never have believed that Jesus Christ would approve of abortions and that was one of the problems I had when I was president; having to uphold Roe v. Wade and I did everything I could to minimize the need for abortions. I made it easy to adopt children for instance who were unwanted and also initiated the program called Women and Infant Children or WIC program that’s still in existence now. But except for the times when a mother’s life is in danger or when a pregnancy is caused by rape or incest I would certainly not or never have approved of any abortions,” former President Jimmy Carter told radio talk show host Laura Ingraham on her syndicated program today.”

I read thirty years ago that former President (then governor) Bill Clinton asked his minister about whether abortion was morally wrong.  His minister said that Baptists believe that life begins with the first breath of the child, so an aborted fetus was not truly alive.  I reject this interpretation, but gave Clinton credit for at least wrestling with the issue.

More recently in the NY Times (today, as a matter of fact) David French, himself an evangelical wrote:

Trump was the very first president since Carter to end his presidency with a higher abortion rate and ratio and tens of thousands of more abortions.

So you’re beginning to have a world with more abortions, decreased support for the pro-life movement, and then Donald Trump himself and the MAGA movement fundamentally changes the Republican Party platform to the point where it was no longer recognizably pro-life. And it was the most watered-down platform on abortion in 40 years.

And so it strikes me as bizarre if people make the argument that as an evangelical Christian, you have to support the man who watered down the pro-life platform in the Republican Party, the man who oversaw the first increase in abortions in decades, the man who has been found liable for sexually abusing a woman, and a man who’s bragged — bragged — about his sexual exploits. That that’s the person that Christians have to support or they’re not. being faithful strikes me as not just destructive, but also laughably ridiculous.”

There was a little bit of light in these comments instead of the heat one usually expects.

If the abortion issue did not exist, then evangelicals would still have the GLBTQ issue, the tax cut issue, the AR-15 assault weapon issue, the school voucher issue, the prayer in public school issue, and so on.  I suppose that they believe that God is a venture capitalist who despises labor unions, life sentences for capital crimes, infection control procedures for deadly diseases and tariffs and that there is a good (read Republican) and evil (read Democrat) way to vote on each of these areas.  Once Mr. Trump leaves Washington for the very last time, then the script will flip as the GOP gradually returns to its senses.

Mr. Trump is completely transactional in his business dealings and while President, he would not think twice about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland if he could convince the Danes to part with it.  Never mind what the people of those two affected regions think of the deal.

Putting a convicted felon in the White House and giving him all the power he can grab without any constraints under law does not make sense to me.  If Kamala Harris ever broke the law, if Joe Biden ever broke the law, if Nancy Pelosi ever broke the law, they should be investigated, indicted if warranted, convicted if guilty and punished.  If I am willing to call out Democrats on this issue, then how can I give Mr. Trump a free pass?  But I doubt Nancy Peloski ever sexually assaulted anyone.  And I don’t think Kamala Harris ever conspired to fix an election.  As far as Joe Biden is concerned, I would support the appointment of a special prosecutor if there is evidence of criminal activity. But so far and in spite of their best and most feverish intentions, the Republicans in the House have not found any evidense.

I’m a positive sort of person.  So, the encouraging, hopeful message Kamala Harris delivered last night resonates within me.  If I were a fearful, angry person, then the message of fear and anger provided by Mr. Trump would be the lens I might choose through which to view my neighbors, my countrymen. Instead of embracing new people I encountered, I would be suspicious of them.

Liz Cheney said it best last fall when she appeared on CNN or some other news network.  She said in effect that four more years of Joe Biden might mean four more years of failed policy.  But four more years of Donald Trump would mean the end of the Republic.  This was probably the first time in my life I ever agreed with Liz Cheney.

Don’t think voting for Kamala Harris will bring “peace in our time.”  If she wins, Mr. Trump will fight tooth and nail to overturn the election regardless of what the courts rule, and I fear he will once again instigate violence. He doesn’t fight personally, of course. He uses others to fight for him. If Donald Trump wins, then our Republic and our fundamental freedoms will be tested as never before.

I don’t wish any politician I disagree with ill. I just wish he would, like Joe Biden, understand that he is no longer Presidential material at this point in his long-lived life. I’m sure that Donald Trump and his wife Melania would like nothing better than to spend the rest of their lives in each other’s company in their paradise in Palm Beach, FL. Let him work on his Presidential Library, write a book, hopefully stay out of prison. Whatever pleases him is fine with me.