These goals are certainly desirable. As a social conservative, every time I hear a politician shy away from a stated social conservative goal, I am immediately suspicious. Usually, they do not believe as I do and are attempting to skirt the issue.  However, there is a difference between the goals, and the tactics used to achieve those goals. As tactics to accomplish the goals of ending abortion and prohibiting gay marriage, the constitutional amendment route is not the only tactic. In fact, the amendment process is so difficult that the tactic can be somewhat of a red herring. Many politicians can advocate amending the constitution, realizing all the while that they will never actually accomplish it.   

            Ron Paul’s tactics on the other hand have a great likelihood of success and only require majority votes! Read the attached bills that Ron Paul has already presented. To summarize: 

H.R. 1094 the Sanctity of Life Act Declares that: (1) human life shall be deemed to exist from conception, without regard to race, sex, age, health, defect, or condition of dependency; and (2) the term "person" shall include all such human life.

H. R. 1095 prohibits any Federal official from expending any Federal funds for any population control or population planning program or any family planning activity, including abortion.

H.R. 300, The We the People Act - Prohibits the Supreme Court and each federal court from adjudicating any claim or relying on judicial decisions involving: (1) state or local laws, regulations, or policies concerning the free exercise or establishment of religion; (2) the right of privacy, including issues of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or (3) the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation where based upon equal protection of the laws.

Ron Paul is the best candidate for social conservatives, for several reasons -

1)      Ron Paul’s bills to protect the unborn; are superior to a constitutional amendment because they only require a majority vote.

2)      Ron Paul’s plan properly invokes the Federal Government to protect the innocent from those who would cause them harm.

3)      Ron Paul’s plan properly does not invoke the Federal Government to legislate a national morality.

4)      Ron Paul removes federal judges, the greatest threat to our freedom of religion, our freedom to foster morality at the state level, and our freedom to define marriage as between one man and one woman – from the picture and places the power to decide these issues back in the hands of the people.  

5)      Ron Paul’s plan recognizes that a large federal government is never a friend to conservatives.

The distinguishing between abortion and gay marriage when it comes to federal protection demonstrates a principled analysis that is lacking in modern social conservatism.

The unprovoked taking of an innocent life should always be proscribed by law and the right to not be deprived of life without due process of law is an explicit constitutional guarantee. So when very liberal candidates suggest a “right to choose, to take an innocent life” we know they have no concept whatsoever of the proper role of government under the United States Constitution. We know that if they provided the same due process to the unborn that is required a death row prisoner, the child at issue would be hitting puberty by the time their appeals run out. Rudy has found a right to kill babies in the Constitution that is superior to the right to life. We shouldn’t be surprised; Pat Robertson has found a right to kill babies in the Bible.  Rudy does not protect the innocent, or even the state’s rights to protect the innocent. This is why any reason given for supporting Rudy Giuliani in the primary is inadequate.

Now a less liberal candidate like Fred Thompson wants to leave both abortion and gay rights to the states. The position is better than Rudi’s, but fails to comprend the right to life that is not a matter left up to the states. This is a position one takes when they are tepidly pro-life, but are still balancing the right to life with a woman’s right to have sex without consequence. Unfortunately our National Right to Life has also become a tepidly pro-life organization. Mitt Romney and John McCain probably fall in this category as well, with Romney being slightly more pro-life in his current rhetoric. But both clearly have nuanced positions on embryonic stem cell research, indicating either their failure to identify life as beginning at conception, or their adoption of an “end justifies the means” mentality with regard to human life.

So, then we go to what appears to be a pro-life stalwart in Mike Huckabee. I cannot question his pro-life views and would rank him #2 on my nominee wish list. However, Mike’s convictions are not all that conservative, as he would not only prohibit abortion and gay marriage by federal law, but smoking as well. I also believe he would outlaw certain trans-fats and possibly mandate exercise for all. We do not want the federal government legislating decisions that should be individual moral decisions.

Does not the difference jump out at you? Protecting life is a (if not the) primary function of government, whereas controlling behavior inexorably leads to controlling more behavior at the expense of liberty. So Mike Huckabee has social conservative credentials, but if I can help it, I’d rather not be on the official state diet.

It’s not that a marriage amendment is wrong per-se; in fact an approach seeking both Ron Paul’s plan, and an amendment might be the perfect route. However – Ron Paul’s plan is superior to Huckabee’s due to its return of power to states, its increased likelihood of success, and our knowledge that he has the will to do it, since he has already introduced the bill.

Ron Paul makes the logical and principled distinction of 1) Protecting life, including embryos, but also 2) Protecting a states right to define marriage through its legislature, and thus 3) Protecting our liberties against federal or international whim.

Why is number 3 so significant to social conservatives? Two huge reasons.

1.              The biggest problems with the homosexual agenda can be cured by promoting and protecting our liberties.

a.       Church’s Teaching: Removing the federal government from the issue and the federal courts from the issue ensures that churches can teach the truth about sexual deviancy.

b.      Education Choice: Ron Paul is an education choice advocate, which ensures our ability to pass on our values to our children, by avoiding public schools that force feed secular indoctrination.

2.              Social conservatives often lose at the national and international levels, so that acquiescing to federal control over some liberties has a great likelihood to backfire against our traditional morality.

We must consider the likelihood that our nation as a whole will be moved in the right direction regarding morality, and with the neo-conservative ideas of global government, we must also consider the direction the rest of the world is taking regarding morality. Read the following article.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/533

Imagine for a minute the following scenarios.

1. The president signed a treaty that required sex museums like the one above to be part of compulsory sex education for all children.

2. The president proposed a bill that required sex museums like the one above to be part of compulsory sex education for all children.

3. The governor of your state proposed a bill that required sex museums like the one above to be part of compulsory sex education for all children.

Now, in which scenario would you have the greatest likelihood of preventing the bills passage? Now throw in that the national media is all for the bill, and dishonestly creates the impression that a large national majority supports the bill. Or in the case of number 1, there is no coverage whatsoever of the treaty until after it is passed.

It seems like our government would never cede our sovereignty to international organizations, yet they already have. The Bush administration sought to overturn the death penalty of a convicted rapist-murderer at the behest of the International Court of Justice. The full power of the federal government as directed by our “conservative” president fought to overturn the Texas conviction of an illegal alien who raped, sodimized, and killed two teenage girls -  because International Law was violated when he wasn’t informed of his rights to petition the Mexican Consulate for attorneys.

In addition, the Approval of The Law of the Sea Treaty just made it out of committee. This is a treaty which Ronald Reagan adamantly opposed. This treaty would give the United Nations authority over all the oceans. America would be ceding thousands of miles of what we currently claim as our water to the United Nations. The UN would then rake in billions, selling of the rights that we gave them.

It seems like people wouldn’t go to jail for home schooling, yet they already have.

It seems that a treaty to promote fair trade and economic growth could not impose abortion on a pro-life country, but it already exists.  You see they are convined in Europe that the right to abort is a “fundamental right” and would glady force a Christian Doctor to perform one.

The reality is that our liberties and our values are always better protected at a local level because we have a greater likelihood of influencing the decisions at that level. Furthermore, the current media distorts the truth on behalf of the left everyday. So while a Mike Huckabee sounds great when he wants a federal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, what happens when Al Gore runs the U.N. and wants to define marriage as a man and a woman who have a maximum of one child for the good of the planet?  Having one child is mandated as a “moral” right of the ozone layer.

Ron Paul not only has a better plan for ending abortion, he has a plan to end the judicial tyranny which has been the real block to a socially conservative legislative agenda. Ron Paul would promote free trade, but never at the loss of our national sovereignty. Ron Paul also promotes educational choice, which would allow more Americans to say NO to a morally relative secular indoctrination in our schools.