Iowans are strongly pro-life and supportive of traditional marriage. These remain strong "bridge" issues that unite economic conservatives with social conservatives whenever questions like abortion funding or overturning true marriage are put on the ballot. When pollsters find that Iowa's likely caucus-goers -- including large blocks of Evangelicals, Catholics, and Lutherans -- are citing the stricken economy as their greatest concern, this does not mean social issues have been forgotten.
First, most of the GOP candidates are already on board for the defense of human life and true marriage. So it makes sense for Iowa voters to tell pollsters and focus group moderators that their primary concern is the economy. This does not mean they don't care about abortion or attempts to undermine marriage. It just means that after numerous candidate debates, those who advocate "civil unions" as a supposed compromise on the marriage issue have difficulty even making the cut to be on the stage. Iowa's Caucus-goers voters aren't buying this obvious ploy.
Second, there need be no conflict between economic and social conservatives. I'm reminded of a story about blueprints for an Iowa convent that had to be approved by the Vatican. The plans came back from Rome with a question: Sunt angeli? Are they angels? The local architects had neglected to put bathrooms in the convent.
We who are pro-life and pro-marriage know that families need jobs. They need a growing economy. But economic conservatives need to recognize that it is stable married families having children that drive economic growth.
Former Wall Streeter David Goldman pointed out in Of Demographics and Depressions (First Things, May 2009) that the economic slump began in the home mortgage industry because we have no more young marrieds with children than we had in 1969. The home mortgage industry has been the driver of America's post-World War II economic prosperity. Cohabiting couples and single parent families tend to rent, not buy.
Consider these examples of economic and social activity. Harry is a rock star. Or soon will be. Harry sleeps in his girl friend's basement. He does a little dope. At night he is the lead singer in the band he has formed. He is soft-spoken and respectful of his elders. Harry's parents shower love on Harry's daughter by his girl friend. Jim is a young husband in the same city. He and his wife have three children under three. Jim has to work long hours as a lawyer, but he does so willingly. For now, he rents. But he has bought a van. Harry's daughter is supported by his girl friend's family and by his own parents. Jim's three children are provided for by Jim.
Does it matter to America whether the rising generation follows the Jim model or the Harry model? Harry's girl friend is successfully pursuing a career. She doesn't do dope. She doesn't have time. Jim's wife is raising their expanding family.
Can America afford to subsidize the breakdown in the family? Planned Parenthood thinks we can. They see a smaller America with smaller hopes. Just keep shoveling public monies to them and their family banning activities and all will be well.
President Obama is suing Texas, Indiana, and Kansas to keep the torrent of federal funds flowing to Planned Parenthood. Not even state governments should be able, according to him, to stop subsidizing this abortion advocacy institution. In all the thousands of line items in the bloated federal budget, the one Sacred Cow for Mr. Obama is Title X, the cash cow for Planned "Barrenhood".
Are we the blind following the blind? Have we so shackled ourselves to the dogmas of
population control and no-growth "progressive" taxation and regulation policies that we cannot see the obvious way out? Strong families are the engine that drives strong economies. It's that simple.
As my colleague, Dr. Henry Potykus, a Senior Fellow at FRC's Marriage And Religion Research Institute, confirms, human capital is the key to our economic growth. Young marrieds -- especially those who worship regularly -- plus education generate the greatest amount of human capital.
Iowa has always had a strong base of intact families and a strong education system. If Iowans know this and appreciate it, it's no small wonder the Iowa's GOP Caucus-goers are strongly pro-life and pro-marriage. And they know that this administration's economic policies are not working. Most Americans sense this. Socialism has never worked wherever it has been tried.
Ronald Reagan began his working life in Iowa, as an announcer on WHO radio. Reagan did not beat voters over the head with Scripture. But he did have fun with some devout evangelists of the Gospel of Marx: "Socialism might work in Heaven, but they don't need it. Socialism would work in Hell, but they've already got it."
It was Reagan who most successfully united social, economic, and defense conservatives. That winning coalition needs to be assembled once again.
Unfortunately, you wish to impose your beliefs and opinions on everybody and that is what makes your position wrong. You advocate discrimination and unequal protection under the law which is both morally and legally wrong. You blindly hate Planned Parenthood because they provide services that are inconsistent with your beliefs, while ignoring the fact that most of what they provide has nothing to do with the services you take so much exception to. I cannot accept your attempts to force your morality on me and I shouldn't have to fight for what is right. But you and other social conservatives are bound and determined to undermine the rights of the rest of us so we do have to fight you. That is truly sad as we could all make so much more progress if we stopped worrying about other people's beliefs and focused on doing what we individually can to make things better.
The attempt to build an economic model upon a foundation of tight government regulation and engineering of our personal lives is admittedly clever, but it is as transparent as it is strained.
The rest of it, unfortunately, consists of the tired, torn attempts to connect *EVERYTHING* to a scapegoat known as reproductive choice, partner choice, and family planning.
It's a "B" for effort, though -- give credit for trying to put some actual *family* matters in Family Research Council. That said, it's an admission that *THEY* see government as a tool for social engineering moreso than the maligned "Left."
Other countries understand that an educated populace should not be burdened with crippling debt right out of college because that debt weakens the consumer by depleting disposable income. The cost of education now demads that most Americans go into crippling debt that cannot be erased in a bankruptcy. Meanwhile, average wages have either stagnated or gone down as a result of 30 years of trickle-down economics that has neglected crucial areas of the public sector that are vital in upholding a social safety-net where people feel comfortable having families in the first place.
Having a family great. But you need a pro-life and pro-family environment in the first place to encourage them. People don't need condescending lectures on "personal responsibility" or pep talks on the "magic of the free market." People need real-life material assisstance.
Pro-life seems to mean that the right to lie will be protected, by any means necessary, from conception to birth. After that, it is no longer their concern.
Personal responsibility seems to mean that you are on your own and if you need any help you will or should not get it from any source because you must be either lazy or immoral or irresponsible.
Social responsibility or the need to contribute to other organizations beyond your church seems to have no meaning for them except to suspect it is code for socialism.
And "free markets" and "smaller government" seem to be closely related as little more than excuses for social darwinism and to dismantle any role for government at all levels to the most basic of all functions--enforcing order.
Get religion out of government now.
As usual, *EVERYTHING* that they accuse the Left of being, they are themselves guilty of, three times over.
*THEY* are the ones who believe that it's the government's job to manage, engineer, and design family life. *THEY* are the ones the believe it's the government's job to favor a de facto official religion and impose a culture by force.
When they speak of "parental rights," don't believe -- for one moment -- that they would respect the rights of parents who hold different beliefs or follow different concepts of life.