{"id":4892,"date":"2012-11-10T08:10:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T15:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/?p=4892"},"modified":"2018-10-03T21:31:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T03:31:05","slug":"battle-for-the-gop-will-republicans-dump-pro-life-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2012\/11\/battle-for-the-gop-will-republicans-dump-pro-life-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle for the GOP: Will Republicans Dump Pro-Life Issues?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/files\/2012\/11\/dead_gop-1.gif\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><br>\n<\/a><strong>That didn\u2019t take long.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>According to a LifeNews <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifenews.com\/2012\/11\/09\/abandoning-pro-life-issues-not-the-gop-path-to-victory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">article,<\/a> Republican political consultants are \u201ccalling on the GOP to abandon pro-life issues.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The article goes on to explain all the reasons why this would be a foolhardy move for the Grand Old Party. I\u2019m not going to go through those arguments. I\u2019m not writing this blog for the people who run either of the political parties.<\/p>\n<p>What I will say is, I told you so.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not prescient. I have no crystal ball. But I work alongside Rs every day. Given the centralized way the Republican Party functions, working with Rs in Oklahoma plugs me into the party thinking from all over these United States of ours. What I mean by that is that local Rs take their positions, get their legislation and even their talking points from think tanks and centralized leaders who also give the same instructions to all other Republican elected officials.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats did not use this model at all until about 10 years ago. I know. I\u2019m a Democratic elected official. They started moving toward it in the wake of Republican victories early in the 21st Century. The reason? It worked.<\/p>\n<p>Now you have people running for local offices in both parties who have their campaign pieces printed and mailed from centralized party campaign headquarters that may be (in Oklahoma, they always are) thousands of miles away from them and their voters. Many times the candidate not only doesn\u2019t approve the ad, they are downright appalled by it when it airs.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been spared this, largely because no one in the official end of the Democratic Party likes me enough to \u201chelp\u201d me. The party faithful have done their best to defeat me in elections. The chances that the party machine is going to come swooping in to \u201chelp\u201d me are slim to none. Think clouds and silver linings.<\/p>\n<p>Both parties are somewhat controlled by centralized committees and think tanks; the Rs almost totally, the Ds becoming more so. Even though the Ds are moving rapidly in this direction, they still don\u2019t have the party control two-step down as well as the Rs. We still write our own speeches, and some of us still get ourselves elected in do-it-yourself campaigns. Most of the Rs were beamed into office and not only don\u2019t think for themselves, they don\u2019t understand politics and the job of legislating well enough to be able to think for themselves, even if they wanted to.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve seen these people get yanked around by party analysts over and again. One of the most ugly was when the money men who run the party showed their true colors on pro life issues. These money men not only aren\u2019t uniformly pro life themselves, a lot of them are openly aligned with groups like Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has drawn its governing boards from among the wealthy in whatever communities it resides since Margaret Sanger began the organization. They interlock their boards with medical associations, chambers of commerce and, more importantly, the most powerful people in the various chamber\u2019s back rooms.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A good percentage of the money men who actually own the Republican Party don\u2019t like the party\u2019s position on social issues. They don\u2019t agree with them. <\/strong>They\u2019ve been willing to put up with campaigns that were run on these issues because what they wanted was to control the power of government. Those issues delivered it to them. It worked. Now, they\u2019re not so sure that it\u2019s continuing to work.<\/p>\n<p>I knew the pressure to dump social issues would start after the election was over. I knew it because I\u2019ve seen this same pressure being applied to Republican office holders even before this election.<\/p>\n<p>All this goes back to something I\u2019ve been saying for a while. <strong>Don\u2019t make a false god out of your political party. Don\u2019t bend your knee to the R and the D. <\/strong>Without us, without our votes, both political parties are empty shells. Do not give them your vote or your support in a blind fashion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christians are going to have to \u201cchose this day who we will serve.\u201d<\/strong> We\u2019re going to have to make this decision over and over as challenges rise from within our political parties, our circle of friends, our jobs, even our families and for some of us, our churches themselves.<\/p>\n<p><strong>My advice \u2026 my request \u2026 is that if you are a Republican, you need to contact the RNC and let them have it for even considering dumping pro life issues. Send them an email by going <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gop.com\/contact-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\" decorated-link\">here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That didn\u2019t take long. According to a LifeNews article, Republican political consultants are \u201ccalling on the GOP to abandon pro-life issues.\u201d The article goes on to explain all the reasons why this would be a foolhardy move for the Grand Old Party. I\u2019m not going to go through those arguments. I\u2019m not writing this blog [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[606,33,39,726,48,1],"tags":[18,739,1281,1280,1282,1283,325,1277,1278,1279,1135],"class_list":["post-4892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-election","category-america","category-christian-persecution-2","category-following-christ","category-pro-life","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-democrats","tag-euthansia-2","tag-grand-old-party","tag-losing-an-election","tag-medical-associations","tag-planned-parenthood","tag-political-campaigns","tag-political-parties","tag-rebublicans","tag-stem-cell-research"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Battle for the GOP: Will Republicans Dump Pro-Life Issues?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That didn&#039;t take long. According to a LifeNews article, Republican political consultants are &quot;calling on the GOP to abandon pro-life issues.&quot; The article\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2012\/11\/battle-for-the-gop-will-republicans-dump-pro-life-issues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Battle for the GOP: Will Republicans Dump Pro-Life Issues?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That didn&#039;t take long. According to a LifeNews article, Republican political consultants are &quot;calling on the GOP to abandon pro-life issues.&quot; The article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2012\/11\/battle-for-the-gop-will-republicans-dump-pro-life-issues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-10T15:10:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-10-04T03:31:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rebecca Hamilton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rebecca Hamilton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2012\/11\/battle-for-the-gop-will-republicans-dump-pro-life-issues\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/2012\/11\/battle-for-the-gop-will-republicans-dump-pro-life-issues\/\",\"name\":\"Battle for the GOP: Will Republicans Dump Pro-Life Issues?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-11-10T15:10:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-04T03:31:05+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/publiccatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/e8d2778109308e0e776e5c16eae7b67d\"},\"description\":\"That didn't take long. 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Hamilton has been an advocate for human rights, believing that government must support and defend the sanctity of all human lives, from conception to natural death. Representative Hamilton: Authored the original Victim\u2019s Protective Order to protect battered women, Obtained funding for the first statewide program for adult day care and the first statewide program of domestic violence shelters, and she She has also passed legislation to prevent law enforcement officials from publicly posting the private information of rape victims, Rep. Hamilton authored a 2005 law hailed as the most significant piece of pro-life legislation in Oklahoma in 30 years. She also passed the bill outlawing elective abortions in state-funded hospitals She has passed pro life bills requiring informed consent, parental notification, and limiting forced abortions. She also passed a law allowing prosecutors to file criminal charges against anyone who intentionally causes the death of an unborn child by harming the mother. Rep. Hamilton has also authored legislation ensuring taxpayers are not forced to subsidize elective abortions Rep. Hamilton was one of six original co-founders of first rape crisis center in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City Democrat has worked to bring a wide range of groups together to fight on the behalf of abused women, including the creation of the Annual Day of Prayer for an End to Violence Against Women at the Oklahoma Capitol. Rep. Hamilton has been married for 30 years to her husband, Rodney, and the couple has two grown sons. 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