Religous Right's Tough Call

For Professor Lobdell's fascinating and thought provoking class, Politics, Media and Religion, I had to write a paper examining the coverage of five different mainstream news agencies of a current event with a religious element. I chose the Values Voter summit in Washington, D.C. organized by the Family Research Council. Basically, where a bunch of the religious right gets together to listen to the GOP candidates culminating in a vote. Winning the Christian Right is usually seen as a big deal for Republicans because they represent a significant voter block. Usually, this is summit is seen as a formality since the front runner of the GOP usually easily wins the majority. However, the Christian Right faces a tough decision this upcoming election.

As this article in The Christian Science Monitor says:

The bad news is that the strongest Republican in national polls, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, is not with them on those issues. And if religious conservatives fail to coalesce around one of the "anti-Giulianis," his chances of getting the nomination rise dramatically – and their issues, they fear, will be off the table. With the next president likely to replace two or more Supreme Court justices, including some who support abortion rights, the opportunity of a generation to overturn the nationwide right to abortion, established in Roe v. Wade, could be lost.

Furthermore, the candidate who appears to best fit the qualities that the Christian Right embodies is Mitt Romney who is a Mormon.

This article in USA Today says it best:

Christian conservatives have not coalesced behind any Republican and have objections to most of them. Rudy Giuliani supports legal abortion, a deal breaker for many. Fred Thompson and John McCain oppose a federal ban on same-sex marriage and led efforts to limit political spending by interest groups. Mitt Romney is Mormon — troubling to some Christians — and didn't oppose abortion until 2004.

Stay tuned to see what republican wins the primary and whether or not the Christian Right supports them or a third party candidate. If the latter is the case most experts agree that a democratic winning the office is a slam dunk.