New Jersey’s tough-talking governor, Chris Christie, entered the Republican presidential race yesterday, making him the 14th presidential hopeful in 2016 (so far). While he is a likable person and consummate retail politician, his positions on key issues put him outside consideration for Christian conservatives voting in the 2016 primaries. Here are six reasons why Christians will not vote for Chris Christie to win the GOP nomination:
1. He has appointed pro-abortion, pro-gay “marriage” judicial activists to state courts, including the Supreme Court. Chris Christie’s record on judicial nominees is simply abysmal. Supreme Court Justice Lee Solomon advocacy of abortion won him the endorsement of Christie and Pro-Choice New Jersey. Solomon and Christie appointee Anne Patterson joined the state Supreme Court in upholding gay “marriage.” Another Christie nominee, Bruce Harris, likened support for the traditional family to slavery.
2. Religious liberty is not a “central issue” for him. When asked about last year’s Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision, the most closely watched religious freedom case in the nation, Christie basically said, “Meh.” The Green family are evangelical Christians who object to giving female employees potentially abortion-inducing drugs as part of ObamaCare’s HHS mandate – and they won. When asked for his reaction, Christie seemed outraged to be asked. “Why should I give an opinion as to whether they were right or wrong?” he said. He added that he did not want to get “bogged down in those things.” “You know what? I don’t think that’s the most central issue that we need to talk about this morning when you look at the challenges that face our country,” he said. (He did eventually say, “I do” when asked if he supported the ruling.) If religious liberty – the reason the Pilgrims sought to settle in North America and the first freedom enshrined in the Bill of Rights – is not “central” for Chris Christie, then Christie is unacceptable to us.
3. He defies the Scriptures by saying homosexuality is “not a sin.” In 2011, he told then-CNN host Piers Morgan, “Well, my religion says it’s a sin…but for me, I don’t. I’ve always believed that people are born with the predisposition to be homosexual. And so, I think if someone is born that way, it’s very difficult to say then that that’s a sin.” He then doubled down. “I understand that my church says that. But for me personally, I don’ t look upon someone who is homosexual as a sinner.” He went on to say in the same interview, “My Catholicism informs part of who I am. But it does not rule who I am.” But Jesus had a definite command that He rule every part of our lives.
4. He bailed out on the marriage debate. Numerous states had their voter-approved laws protecting marriage overturned by activist judges – usually federal court judges appointed by liberal presidents or the state Supreme Court. Only one governor let a county judge do the honors. Chris Christie threw in the towel on the marriage debate after a Mercer County superior court judge struck down the law. Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), called Christie’s actions “a disqualifying failure.” “Governor Christie has basically backed away from one of the most fundamental social institutions — marriage, between one man and one woman,” agreed Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader, a leading Christian conservative group in Iowa. “This is not going to play well for him if he chooses to enter the Republican primary for president of the United States.” Given the chance, evangelicals must keep their word.
5. He legally outlawed a method of religious counseling for minors struggling with homosexuality. Christie signed a bill barring counselors from offering teens experiencing same-sex attraction “reparative therapy,” a method often falsely tied to stories of torture and even deaths. Christie became the second governor in the country to ban the practice – right after California Governor Jerry Brown, a far-Left Democrat often derisively called “Governor Moonbeam.”
6. He has refused to campaign for Christian conservative Republicans. As head of the Republican Governors Association, Christie refused to campaign with Rob Astorino, the pro-life, pro-family conservative running for governor in neighboring New York. But he had no trouble campaigning in New Hampshire – coincidentally, the state where he would fare best in the 2016 primaries – for pro-abortion Republican Scott Brown. (Brown lost his election for the Senate by four points.) He also had no trouble literally embracing Barack Obama on the eve of the 2012 presidential election. In 1964, everyone knew Barry Goldwater had no chance of being nominated president, but Richard Nixon stumped for him – a man for whom he had little affinity – to prove he was a team player. Christie was not willing to give conservatives the same consideration.
7. He is the favorite candidate of the donor class. Before Jeb Bush got into the race, Chris Christie was described as the favorite candidate of the GOP’s Wall Street funding apparatus. That’s a problem: The party’s high dollar donors disdain the “values voters” they are forced to stand alongside at Republican Party events and increasingly want the party to dance only to their tune. Leon Cooperman, a hedge fund billionaire who calls himself “very socially liberal,” told PBS’s Wall Street Week last month, “I’m going to have trouble with any Republican that does not disavow a fixation with social issues.”
8. He can’t wait to “compromise” with the Democrats. Christie gave a clear indication that he will be a bona fide “moderate” as president in his annoucement speech. “Both parties have failed our country!” he said rightly – but he misdiagnosed the reason. “Both parties have stood in the corner and held their breath and waited to get their own way. Both parties have led us to believe that in America – a country that was built on compromise – that somehow now compromise is a dirty word.” It is difficult to see a Republican House leadership that has given Obama debt ceiling increases, “clean” appropriations bills that look the other way at his executive amnesty, and let him carry out an imperial war-by-decree against Libya as particularly gutsy. For Christie, they’re practically on the verge of secession. His answer is to “compromise,” which by definition means moving leftward from where you begin. And Chris Christie is already to the Left of his party. Where would he draw the line?
Some will argue that none of these is beyond the pale, and we should not bring these inconvenient facts to light so he is not hurt in the general election. But we are not in the general election. In the primary – particularly one with 14 candidates already – Christians can afford to select a candidate who reflects their values and puts their issues at the forefront. Chris Christie doesn’t, and he doesn’t pretend to. He walked out on us, and he should expect us to return the favor.
Sorry if that sounds blunt, but I think Christie of all people would understand.
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