When Iowa Supreme Court justices created same-sex marriage in 2007, voters responded at the next opportunity by firing three justices who were up for reelection – a result so astounding, it still reverberates among the judiciary.
Now, the 2014 election season is approaching, and some of the activists who influenced the Iowa vote are back at work.
They’re targeting 12 key states: Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Alaska, Arkansas, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia.
The strategy was profiled Monday by David Brody of CBN News.
Brody said the groups – led by the American Renewal Project – are planning briefings for evangelical pastors, voter-registration drives and other events in an attempt “to restore American to its Judeo-Christian heritage.”
“Their goal is to engage pastors around issues so they will get their congregations to participate in the political process and flock to voting booths,” he reported.
That issue also arose in the run-up to the 2012 election as many evangelicals were disenchanted with the moral positions of candidates on abortion, marriage and other social issues.
In fact, WND columnist Chuck Norris pointed out his concerns, calling on evangelical Christians to join him in crushing the creep of socialism under Barack Obama.
Norris and his wife, Gena, filmed a public-service announcement, unveiled exclusively at WND.
“We are here to talk about a growing concern we all share,” Chuck Norris explained. “If we look to history, our great country and freedom are under attack. We’re at a tipping point and, quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed.”
Gena warned that voter apathy among evangelicals in 2008 may have contributed to Obama’s election in the first place.
“With our country at a crossroads, Chuck and I have asked ourselves what we can be doing to help support this great country we’re blessed to live in and how we can encourage our like-minded American brothers and sisters to unite and let their voices be heard,” she said. “It is estimated that in the 2008 election, 30 million evangelical Christians stayed home on voting day and Obama won the election by 10 million votes.”
Chuck Norris cautioned Christians about the cost of doing nothing while the nation moves toward socialism.
“We know you love your family and your freedom as much as Gena and I do,” he said in his appeal to Americans. “And it is because of that we can no longer sit quietly or stand on the sidelines and watch our country go the way of socialism or something much worse.”
The video:
[jwplayer y3zxYWu1]
The CBN report said the effort is to inspire the “tens of millions” of evangelical Christians who don’t vote. And it’s not party-based.
Brody reported such sentiment has in the past “fought back against forces that are trying to move this country away from its original Judeo-Christian framework.”
“As they continue that battle into 2014, there will now be an additional battle to fight. This one won’t be against liberals; rather it will be against Republicans who, in their view seem more concerned about preserving a political party instead of sustaining a moral and righteous nation. That’s the next confrontation to watch.”
Among the individual efforts will be a coming “Pastors and Pews” event in May in Des Moines, Iowa, in which hundreds of pastors will hear Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; and Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Other possible speakers are U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa; Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback; Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry; former Republican U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma and others.
Perry told Brody the issue of morality is critical.
“I believe a person’s faith gives them a more tangible view of right and wrong, and roots them in sound moral values that are essential to a healthy community. Today, more than ever, we need people of faith to make their voices heard, and provide the principled leadership to guide our nation through the tough decisions we face every day,” he said in an email to CBN.
The report said the American Renewal Project, affiliated with the American Family Association, also has rallied support for California’s Prop 8, which defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.
David Lane runs the American Renewal Project by remaining mostly below the radar, the report said.
He told Brody the stakes are high.
“If the key to maintaining sustainable freedom is righteousness – the same virtue that produced freedom – what is the greatest threat to freedom? Unrighteousness. America has left God.”
The focus is not so much putting a target on objectionable politicians but getting Christians interested in the future of their nation and to the voting booths.
Norris urged Christians to rally together.
“Please stand with us,” he said. “Let’s unite for God and country.”
The theme of this year’s Presidential Inaugural Prayer Breakfast was II Chronicles 7:14, which places the burden of a nation’s restoration not on its leadership, its politicians, its military, its social programs, its economy or any of the typical power sources.
It puts the responsibility on Christians: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
