Sanford and the GOP: For whom tolls the bell?

People who really care about the moral crisis of our country should look with suspicion on those who seek to prove the sincerity of their moral leadership by anguishing over the personal transgressions of individual politicians like Mark Sanford, while ignoring the promotion of evil on a massive public scale through legal assertion of so-called “abortion rights” and legalized marriage for homosexuals.

From obvious political motives, such people show more concern about the personal sins of individual politicians than they do about the immoral policies that are destroying our way of life.

Gov. Mark Sanford, prey to the weakness that is the hallmark of our fallen nature, acted in violation of his marriage vows.

What of all those so-called Republicans who, by their silence and inaction on Obama’s eligibility for the presidency, have forsworn their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution?

Start your own elibibility billboard campaign in your neighborhood with WND’s new yard signs, asking: “Where’s the Birth Certificate?”

Mark Sanford, perhaps not anxious enough for God’s abounding grace, succumbed to the law that is in our members, endangering the peace of his family.

What of all those Republicans who succumb to the pressures of media and cultural propaganda to promote the acceptance of homosexual marriage or indifference to the fatal evil involved in the legal protection of so-called abortion rights?

Legalized child murder contradicts the fundamental principle of justice (“All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights”) from which the American people derive their claim to liberty and constitutional self-government. Homosexual marriage discards the natural right of the family and with it the natural basis for claims of parental authority and obligation that must be respected by the state.

Silence and indifference toward the Constitution’s clearly stated eligibility requirements for the presidency directly undermine the Constitution’s authority and that of whole system of government based upon it.

If his infidelity to his marriage vows casts doubt on Sanford’s fitness for high public office, why doesn’t the failure to respect their sworn oath to the Constitution cast doubt on the trustworthiness of all the politicians convicted by their cowardly silence on the issue? Why doesn’t the failure actively to defend the integrity of the marriage institution cast doubt on all the Republican politicians whose derelict stand betrays their party’s platform and the people the GOP therefore claims to represent?

When individuals sin, they transgress against a standard of right conduct, but their action doesn’t in and of itself deny the existence and validity of the standard. Their admission of wrongdoing and repentance not only signifies their desire to re-establish their relationship with God, it also reaffirms their respect for the standard of His will.

But when public laws declare child murder to be a right, they contradict and overturn the standard of right conduct, putting in its place a false assertion of right that misleads and corrupts the conscience of the whole nation. The example of a repentant sinner can actually improve the moral character of the people. But by denying the very principle of justice and morality, the bad influence of a legalized practice or institution can only corrupt and deprave the people.

A thousand adulterous politicians like Mark Sanford, if they admit their fault and truly determine to turn away from and make up for it, do less harm than one brazen advocate of public evil, like Barack Obama or Meg Whitman, whose political stands poison the nation’s sense of right and wrong.

I didn’t leave the Republican Party because some Republican politicians are sinners. So are we all, if the Christ and his apostle got it right. I left because the GOP is under the thumb of forces that have discarded the deep commitment to America’s moral principles that was the chief reason for the Party’s inception. I left because its controlling element will no longer permit a fair hearing to anyone who speaks without equivocation for the desperate need to restore the nation’s moral priorities. I left because too many Republicans are willing to sit idly by in silence while these false Republicans join the Obama faction in destroying the moral compass of America and with it the great and providential role of leadership that makes our nation’s existence and true success so important to all humanity.

Some people see Mark Sanford’s tumble as a blow to efforts to revive the GOP’s flagging political support. Truth is, neither Sanford’s bad personal choices, nor Sarah Palin’s personally good ones can change the fact that dooms these efforts to failure: the unwillingness not just to heed but even to hear the grass roots’ heartfelt plea for a courageous fight to restore respect for the Constitution and the moral principles that make it just. The Republican Party began because of Americans who would not surrender their allegiance to those principles. Now, as it drives them from its midst, it tolls the knell of its imminent demise.

Alan Keyes

Once a high-level Reagan-era diplomat, Alan Keyes is a long-time leader in the conservative movement. He is well-known as a staunch pro-life champion and an eloquent advocate of the constitutional republic, including respect for the moral basis of liberty and self-government. He has worked to promote an approach to politics based on the initiative of citizens of goodwill consonant with the with the principles of God-endowed natural right. Read more of Alan Keyes's articles here.