Tom Ridge: GOP is ready for a pro-choice VP
Posted by: onemom on: August 18, 2008
- In: 3. Politics
- Comment!
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge said Sunday (this was AFTER McCain’s appearance at Saddleback church) he thinks Republicans would accept a vice presidential candidate who supports abortion rights. But, he said, whomever John McCain picks as a running mate should defer to McCain on the issue.
McCain opposes abortion rights, but he riled some conservatives last week when he suggested his running mate could — like Ridge — support abortion rights.
“What he (McCain) was saying to the rest of the world is that we need to accept both points of view,” Ridge said in a broadcast interview. (AP)
Note the line I emphasized. Considering the topic – lives of millions of children – I cannot accept both points of view. That would be like standing face to face with a terrorist, and saying to that person “Well, my point of view is that I would like to live. However, I accept your point of view in which you want to kill me.”
I tried to think of an instance where this type of logic would actually work, and I believe I have it. My husband loves creamy peanut butter. I, however, love chunky peanut butter. I accept his point of view. The only cost to me for accepting my husband’s creamy peanut butter point of view is needing room for two jars of peanut butter on the shelf in the pantry.
There is no room on my shelf to accept the point of view that it’s ok to kill millions of little ones.
OneMom
9 Responses to "Tom Ridge: GOP is ready for a pro-choice VP"
August 18, 2008 at 9:15 am
Add another one to the list of ways the Republican Party is abandoning traditional conservative values.
August 18, 2008 at 10:09 am
I can allow the opposing viewpoint to exist and be expressed, but that doesn’t mean I have to foster it. We’re becoming too obsessed with “tolerance” in this form.
But you’re right, chunky is better.
August 18, 2008 at 10:19 am
Good story about Peanut butter, I wish my wife would tolerate some of my food. But on a serious note. I do not think Mr. Ridge will be chosen. This is a kanard.
August 18, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Kerry,
Good illustration and analysis to make the point on when to allow choice and tolerance and when to stand and stick with conviction and principle.
As an aside, I do not (for reasons I will not get into) eat peanut butter of any kind. But I would have no problem tolerating and serving both you and your husband your different choices in peanut butter if that situation should ever come
to me.
But since I got involved in the Right to Life movement in 1972 I have never knowlingly voted for a pro-choice candidate. I do not vote for candidates supporting the homosexual agenda or for candidates with repeated ethical and moral failures in their own lives. These are bottom line checks for me before I proceed on to other issues and qualifications. As I have commented several times on different blogs in the past year, this year I may find it necessary to entirely skip the presidential race on the ballot.
Right now I am considering Chuck Baldwin, presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, though Baldwin leans too much to libertarianism for my tastes.
Meanwhile I continue to focus on supporting select Republican candidates in lesser races on the ballot.
August 18, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Thanks Raymond. It is always good to hear from you. If you ever have opportunity to make my husband a PB sandwich, it requires – creamy PB, Jam (not jelly), and at least one slice of american cheese on it! Ewww. But I looked beyond these disagreements and married him anyway.
August 18, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Cheese on a PBJ? And American cheese, at that! Wow … you are truly full of grace to marry such a man!
Great post, Kerry. I wish we’d had a candidate for the GOP nomination who really had a strong pro-life candidacy … you know, maybe a guy whose first political activities were getting a right-to-life amendment passed, maybe passing one when he was a governor, that kind of thing.
Sigh …
I doubt that Ridge will get the nod, I think that he’s out there floating those “trial balloons” that politicians like to mention. On the other hand, the fact that McCain is letting all of these balloons out instead of just taking a stand is one of the reasons I can’t back him.
I just don’t trust him.
By the way, I’m a crunchy fan, but every now and then creamy is okay (mostly on graham crackers).
August 19, 2008 at 9:54 am
Great analogy.
My problem with accepting both point of views is that you then are saying that there is no truth. If truth exists only one position can be right – it is okay to kill babies or it isn’t. Both can’t be right.
There is a scripture in the Bible that says the in the end days “right will become wrong, and wrong will become right.”
For me, I must always remember, especially now, that right is always right.
August 20, 2008 at 9:22 am
I totally agree. I’m glad to see people who won’t give in. “Tolerance is the virtue of men who no longer believe in anything”
August 18, 2008 at 2:09 am
AMEN!!!