How to vote in the 2012 presidential election

Let me tell you, it is a relief to finally understand what I believe Christians ought to do vis a vis the 2012 American presidential election. I have concluded that both major party candidates are unacceptable and that Christians ought (perhaps) to vote for a third-party candidate or refrain from voting altogether.

Let me explain. The current president is unacceptable on the basis of abortion alone. Just ticking the pro-abortion box on candidate survey forms should be enough to disqualify any man from the Christian vote, but this president is arguably the strongest advocate of abortion ever to hold any elected office in US history. He supports partial-birth abortion. He never misses an opportunity to defend Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US, and he has acted to make sure the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) forces insurers to pay for abortions, in spite of personal promises that this would not happen. He has shown himself to be a an anti-Christian socialist who believes it is only “bitter” people who “cling” to faith in God (Do you hear the echo of Marx’s “religion . . . . is the opium of the people?”). But for the Christian, it is enough to know his stance on abortion to know how to vote.

Mitt Romney presents a more difficult question for most Christian voters. He is avowedly pro-life and pro-family. He is also a devout Mormon, which for many people makes him almost a Christian, maybe even as good as a Christian and certainly better than many of the self-professed “Christians” elected in the past. And anyway, don’t we try to separate church and state? If the British people could elect a Jewish-born prime minister in the 19th century (Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-81), why can’t the US elect a Mormon in the twenty-first? The best response is that church and state are different things; they should be separated. But a man is what he believes. Mitt Romney simply cannot be separated from his Mormonism. He is what Mormonism is, and the thing to keep in mind is that Mormonism is fundamentally anti-Christ.

Many Christians are rightfully offended that Muslims deny Jesus is the Divine Son of God. But mere denials of His unique Sonship and Divinity are not enough for Mormons. They make him out to be Satan’s brother. They also declare Jesus to have been a mere man like the rest of us, who by his own efforts made himself a God; they teach that every Mormon man can also become a god, just as Jesus and his Father before him have done. Mormons appear to agree with the New Testament by teaching that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. But they twist the story to mean she was only a virgin until God impregnated her the old-fashioned way while she was betrothed to Joseph. This sounds like the gross sensuality of the Greek gods and goddesses because that is exactly what it is.

Keep in mind that Mitt Romney believes these things. We know this because he has frequently confessed his allegiance to the Mormon church and all its beliefs. “I’m very proud of my faith,” he said on Meet the Press in 2007, “and it’s the faith of my fathers, and I certainly believe that it is a, a faith—well, it’s true, and I love my faith. And I’m not going to distance myself in any way from my faith!”

How does that work practically? Well, it means that Romney, like other devout Mormons, is an elitist of the worst sort. He thinks that he and his fellow Mormons are on their way to ruling entire planets, and therefore superior to other men. That attitude will affect his choice of counsellors; such a man is not likely to consider advice or correction unless it comes from his “equals.”

Speaking of equals, Romney’s attitude will also affect his appointments. I was a magazine journalist in Alberta (1994-2003) and I found out how the Mormons work. More than once people told me, “Don’t ever accept a Mormon’s offer to help run your organization (I have in mind a political party activist and a former leader of a conservative women’s group). Before you know it the Mormon ‘mafia’ will take over.”

It seems to me that the last thing a Christian ought to do is vote to put in place a governing body (the president and his hand-picked counsellors) who are infused with the spirit of anti-Christ and who hold to a set of beliefs that are more akin to science fiction than science. (The parallels between Mormonism and TVs Battlestar Galactica are far too numerous to be accidental, not to mention the fact that Battlestar creator, Glen Larson was/is a member of the Mormon church. See http://home.comcast.net/~billotto/Mormon_N_BSG.html)

Some will say, we must elect Mitt Romney because the alternative is far worse. To that I reply, worse in what way? If you mean that you expect the American economy will more likely bounce back under Romney than under President Obama then you may have an argument. But you may not. Keep in mind that the whole world is in an economic mess; our financial system may have deteriorated to the point that no one can save it.

If you are looking to Romney to shrink government, restore individual liberties, defend religious liberty, etc., then I say, “think again.” Romney has done nothing to demonstrate that he is a conservative or that he understands the genius of American liberty any more than Obama. Nor should that surprise. Remember, a man is what he believes and Mormonism is at heart statist, socialist and tyrannical. Moreover, like Islam, Mormons believe theirs is the one true religion and that they have a duty to impose it upon the world for its own good. The US political system may improve after November 2012, but it is much more likely to happen because of a Republican majority in both houses of congress than because Mitt Romney is in the White House.

Please do not argue that Christians need Mitt Romney to keep America strong. America has been strong, and I happen to think that a strong America has many times been used by God to do His work. But American Christians do not need a strong America any more than Iranian Christians need a strong Iran or Egyptian Christians need a strong Egypt. We’re about something else altogether; neither our resources nor our endpoints are of this world.

The early Christians did not concern themselves with the strength of Rome. They got about the business of proclaiming a King who had conquered the grave and who ruled all the nations. We should do the same.