DES MOINES — Much of the first half of Saturday’s Mitt Romney-less social conservative debate here was focused on the problems Christians face in modern society.
They can’t preach politics from the pulpit, Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain said. They can’t keep potential adoptees out of same sex families, all agreed. But it’s Newt Gingrich who most starkly stated the uphill climb America’s Christians are facing these days.
During a discussion about using the federal government to force states to allow religious groups to discriminate against same sex couples when placing children for adoption, Gingrich said liberals are out to destroy faith itself.
As president, Gingrich said, he’ll hold the line.
If look at history from the mid-1960s, we’ve gone from a request for toleration to an imposition of intolerance. We’ve gone from a request to understand others to a determination to close down those who hold traditional values.
I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our civilization and deserves to be taken head on and described as what it is which the use of government to repress the American people against their own values.
