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A Vote For Romney is a Vote For… Satan?
By Bill | November 6, 2007 | Email This Post
(bonus points if you read that headline like the Church Lady.)
“A Vote For Romney Is A Vote For Satan,” suggests televangelist Bill Keller as quoted by Slate. You might expect the religious right to direct a similar headline against someone like Hillary Clinton, but a segment of evangelicals has chosen to target Romney for their wrath. Keller goes on to say that “[Romney] would influence people to seek out the Mormon faith… They would get sucked into those lies and they would eventually die and go to hell.”
Here Keller disagrees with a segment of his brethren, who, in the absence of another major candidate (they apparently choose not to include Mike Huckabee in that category) reflective of their values, have decided to ignore their theological differences with Romney and throw their support behind the best of the lot. Christian public relations executive Mark DeMoss summed it up thusly: “I am convinced his values practically mirror my own - values about the sanctity of life, the sacredness of marriage, the importance of family, character and integrity, free enterprise and smaller government.”
Keller’s response to such ecuminicalism? “Judases,” he calls them. “They all come back and say, we’re looking for the best president. He’s the commander in chief, not the pastor in chief, blah blah blah…. What they have done is, they have totally dismissed the fact that this guy’s influence is going to lead people to hell.”
An interesting dilemma. If the religious right is unable to look past Romney’s Mormonism, they choose to undermine perhaps the only candidate that has a chance of winning the nomination with whom they also agree on the issues. And should Romney win without them, will their reticence carry through into the general election, with the prospect of eight years of a Hillary Clinton administration looming before them - surely the direst of all possible outcomes, from their point of view? Or will they purposely withhold their support in the smug assurance that eight years of a Democratic administration is just what the country needs to show it the error of departing from the straight and narrow?
Topics: Mitt Romney |