Kathleen Parker, in her column printed 11/19/08, called for a new political party if the Republican Party does not squelch her main grievance. She pinned the 11/4 Republican defeat on what she says is the “gorilla in the pulpit…G-O-D…the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy, boogedy branch of the GOP.” Parker acknowledges the Creator and Judeo-Christian values as contributing to “most of the world’s architectural treasures, our universities, and even our founding documents,” but says it is religion “that is killing the Republican Party,” that “the Republican Party—and conservatives with it—eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one’s heart where it belongs.”

      She notes that the Republican Party is largely white, married, older, and Christian while the energized Democratic Party has youth plus diversity of race, creed and sexual orientation, thereby better representing the growing diversity of this nation.

      However, diversity cannot be what Parker says is “devastating to the Republican Party.” Over 90% of our citizens believe in God and consider that belief to be very important, over 75% consider themselves Christian, and the majority consider abortion and homosexuality to be immoral. Remember that close to 50% voted the McCain/Palin ticket despite Obama outspending them 5:1 (Obama spent over $600,000, an unprecedented amount), hundreds of thousands put into ACORN getting out the vote, having the unions, mainstream media, and Hollywood solidly behind Obama, and despite the economic crash erroneously being blamed on Republicans. Do not underestimate the impact of the majority of voters foolishly believing the grandiose promises dishonest Obama made he knew he couldn’t keep.

      Parker gives lip-service to the importance of Judeo-Christianity to our founding documents; she misses the fact that it IS our foundation; it is the basis of our freedom and respect for human rights. 52 of the 55 signers of The Declaration of Independence were orthodox Christians. The other three believed in the Bible as divine truth from God and believed in His intervention in the affairs of humankind.

      In 1776 Patrick Henry, firebrand of the American Revolution, said, “An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations…Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.” In 1776 he said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here.”

      Benjamin Franklin in a 1787 speech to the Constitutional Convention: “… the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel…I therefore beg leave to move—that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.”

      James Madison, the primary author of our Constitution said, “We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

      George Washington in his farewell speech of 1796: “It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

      John Adams, second president of the US and chairman of the American Bible Society said, “We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” His son, Quincy Adams, sixth president and also chairman of the American Bible Society stated, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

      Thomas Jefferson: (engraved on his memorial in Washington D.C.) “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

      So what would Kathleen Parker’s new party look like, deprived of giving the utmost value to God in governance of our nation? It would well-reflect the ongoing degradation that we have seen, the very destruction of our nation predicted by our Founding Fathers as we depart from the Lord Almighty.

Annie Bukacek MD