KEEPING THE FAITH
WHY U. S. CHRISTIANS STILL SUPPORT TRUMP, DESPITE HIS ALLEGED STORMY AFFAIRS
As 60 Minutes prepares to air its i nter view with adult- film actress Stormy Daniels, conservative Christians are being accused of hypocrisy. How can so-called “values voters” continue to stand with President Donald Trump despite revelations that he allegedly had affairs with a porn actress and a Playboy model, and paid them for their silence?
No doubt some Christian leaders have gone too far in rationalizing Trump’s past personal behaviour and excusing his offensive comments while in office. He is a deeply flawed man. But Trump does have one moral quality that warrants their admiration: He has kept his promises.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged to defend religious liberty, stand up for unborn life and appoint conservative jurists to the Supreme Court and federal appeals courts. And he has done exactly what he promised. The abortion- rights lobby NARAL complains that Trump has been “relentless” on these fronts, declaring his administration “the worst … that we’ve ever seen.” That is more important to most Christian conservatives than what the president may have done with a porn actress more than 10 years ago.
Trump’s election came as religious liberty was under unprecedented attack. The Obama administration was trying to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious conscience and facilitate payment for abortifacient drugs and other contraceptives. During oral arguments in the Obergefell vs. Hodges case, president Barack Obama’s solicitor general told the Supreme Court that churches and universities could lose their tax- exempt status if they opposed same-sex marriage.
Hillary Clinton promised to escalate those attacks. In 2015, she declared at the Women in the World Summit that “religious beliefs … have to be changed” — perhaps the most radical threat to religious liberty ever delivered by a major presidential candidate. Had Clinton won, she would have replaced the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia with a liberal jurist, giving the Supreme Court a liberal judicial-activist majority.
The impact would have been immediate, as the court prepares to decide two cases crucial to religious liberty. In Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court will soon determine whether the government can compel a U. S. citizen to violate his conscience and participate in speech that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs. In National Institute of Family Life Advocates vs. Becerra, the court will decide whether the state of California can compel crisis pregnancy centres opposed to abortion to nonetheless advertise access to abortion to their clients, in violation of their conscience. Those cases are being heard not by five liberals, but five conservatives, including Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, because Trump kept his promise to “appoint j ustices to t he Supreme Court who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not legislate from the bench.”
The president is moving at record pace to fill the federal appeals courts with young conservative judges who will protect life and religious freedom for decades. He also fulfilled his promise to defend the Little Sisters from government bullying, by expanding the religious and conscience exemption to the Obamacare contraception mandate to cover both nonprofit and forprofit organizations.
Trump ordered the creation of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the civil rights of doctors, nurses and other health- care workers who refuse to take part in such procedures as abortion, reversing an Obama-era policy that required them to do so. And his Justice Department issued 25- page guidance to federal agencies instructing them to protect religious liberty in the execution of federal law.
While Clinton promised to repeal the Hyde Amendment that barred federal funds for abortion, Trump has been a champion for the anti- abortion movement. He became the first president to address the March for Life when he spoke by satellite video from the White House’s Rose Garden. He reinstated and expanded the “Mexico City policy” — which prohibits U. S. foreign aid from going to groups that perform or promote abortion. He signed legislation overturning an Obama- era regulation that prohibited states from defunding abortion-service providers.
Indeed, Trump has arguably done more in his first year in office to support prolifers and protect religious freedom than any modern president. Little wonder that religious conservatives stick with him despite the Daniels revelations. This is not to say that Christians don’t think a culture of fidelity is important. But they believe their culture of life to be important, too. As is a culture that is welcoming to religious believers rather than waging war on them.
No one upholds Trump as moral exemplar. He is not the most religious president the United States has ever had, but he may be the most proreligion president. Christian conservatives are judging Trump not by his faith, but by his works. And in their eyes, his works are good.