October 11, 2007

Radio host and columnist Frank Pastore recently spoke with the founder of Focus on the Family Dr. James Dobson. The discussion centered on Dr. Dobson’s recent op-ed in The New York Times detailing why he will only vote for a pro-life, pro-family presidential candidate. 

Frank Pastore: Dr. Dobson why don’t we start with what happened last week—there was a meeting in Salt Lake City—let’s pick it up there.

Dr. James Dobson: Yes, there was an informal meeting of about 50 pro-family and pro-life leaders that had come together. The purpose of it was to talk about what we would do if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate—if he is the standard bearer for Republicans, what would we do. We talked about it for about an hour and then there was a proposal put to the group saying, if this happens, if the Republicans abandon the unborn child and the institution of marriage, and if we have only that choice or a choice for Hillary, what will we do.

There were about 50 people there and, to my count, 44 of them stood saying we will not vote for Rudy Giuliani or whoever it is we’re talking about that’s pro-abortion. And that got covered all over the nation and, as you can imagine, I was inundated.

So I wrote an op-ed in The New York Times saying why we would not do that—because you start with a moral principle. You have to make your decisions about who’s going to lead you not on the basis of pragmatics—not on the basis of who can win or who’s ahead in the polls or who has the most money or who’s the most popular. You begin by saying what are the irreducible minimums that I believe in, that I care about; what are the biblical values I cannot compromise.

I think, Frank, that many Christians have not thought it through yet and they look at Hillary Clinton and they’re scared to death of her (for very good reason, I am too) and they just say anybody’s better than that, let’s take the lesser of two evils. I cannot do that. 

Pastore: I’m wondering why is everyone upset with James Dobson? Why aren’t people upset with Rudy supporters and pro-choice Republicans that have given his campaign money, knowing that we cannot violate our core values and our core principles and elect a pro-choice candidate—we will not do that. Where was their thinking beforehand, when they started supporting a candidate?

Dobson: Here’s why I cannot vote for Rudy Giuliani. He’s pro-abortion. He’s never repudiated gay marriage in New York City or at least the civil unions in New York City. He’s called a champion of gay rights. Rudy is opposed to school choice. He’s in favor of open borders. He lived with a mistress in the mansion in New York while he was married to his wife—and she was in the same house. He’s been married three times. When his second wife got sick of it she threw him out and he went to live with two homosexuals. He appointed terrible liberal judges as a mayor; he says now he’ll appoint Scalia-type judges, you can believe that if you want to, I don’t because his record says otherwise. He dressed up in drag and appeared on “Saturday Night Live” in a very disrespectful manner—I just can’t see a presidential candidate doing something like that. He’s a Catholic, but says he will not be guided by it. He has utter disdain for the pro-life and pro-family movement. I mean it goes on and on and on.