Vote to give the innocent and helpless a chance at life

By Father DAVID EPPS
Contributing Writer

Father David Epps is Rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church which meets at 8 and 10 a.m. Sundays at 4881 E. Hwy. 34. He may be contacted at 770-252-2428, or at frepps@ctkcec.org

In 1976, I voted for Jimmy Carter for president of the United States. Like many in America, I was tired of hearing about Watergate, disgusted with the Nixon pardon issued by President Gerald Ford, and ready for a change.

I was one of those "undecided" voters on Election Day. In fact, I didn't know who I was going to vote for until I walked into the polling place in Chuckey, Tenn., and was offered a peanut by a poll worker. "Why not?" I thought, and voted for the peanut farmer. It was the last time I ever voted for a national Democrat.

Voting for Democrats was a given in my family. We were Southerners and it was those %#$&* Republicans and %#$&* Yankees who had ruined our blessed South for the past hundred years. The South was solidly Democratic. To vote for a Republican, the party of Abraham Lincoln and the Yankee marauders, was, to a Southern Baptist or Methodist, the equivalent of going to the Roman Catholic Church; both actions could land you in Hell. Most of my family didn't even know any Republicans or Catholics.

That all changed when George McGovern ran for the presidency. My grandfather, a pipefitter and a staunch union man, couldn't stomach the views of ultra-liberal McGovern and cast a vote for Richard Nixon. When he fell ill later that year, he was certain that God was punishing him. "Jesus," after all, "rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not on an elephant!"

When, in 1980, my parents voted for Ronald Reagan, it marked the end of an era. It wasn't that my folks were all that "Republican," it was that they felt abandoned by the Democrats. My parents were conservative to the core. They would have been proud of Zell Miller and would have voted for him had they lived in Georgia. He was a true Democrat in the Southern Democratic tradition, they would have felt. Zell had convictions, courage, integrity and, above all, guts. When the Democrats, In their view, lost all these things and went after lofty, liberal, leftist ideals, those who considered themselves "true" Democrats were left behind.

For my part, I quit voting for people whose surrogates offered me peanuts (oh, that others would also learn that lesson) and became more aware of the issues. I cannot and will not, for example, vote for a candidate that is in favor of the slaughter of 4,000 babies a day in American's abortion mills. To me it is the central abomination of our day, as slavery was the central abomination of the 1860s. America has suffered for slavery and, I believe, will suffer for this sacrilege as well.

I considered not voting for Johnny Isakson for the U.S. Senate because the National Right to Life Organization gives him a pro-life approval rating of 80 percent. Where I went to school, 80 percent was a few points above a "D." Unless he improves, if he wins, I will not vote for him in the next election. His opponent received a 0 percent approval, which, in any school system is an "F." So, this year, he gets my vote.

I believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe that she can choose or not choose to have unprotected, unrestricted sex. Men have that choice as well. Once she and he choose to have sex, I do not believe in the right to kill a child conceived because a bad, usually immoral, choice was made. I believe in "pro-choice." I choose life over death. In my view, the Democratic Party has become the party of death and, truthfully, in my view, that one plank outweighs all the rest of the lumber in the platform.

A friend said to me a few weeks ago, "I have no love for the Republicans ... if the Democrats would get off their pro-choice stance, I'd vote for the Democrats." Others apparently feel the same way. Most evangelicals will vote for the Republicans because they believe them to be more morally right than the Democrats. Catholics are historically Democrats, but in national elections, they face a real dilemma due to the fact that the Democratic Party supports a position that the Vatican considers a "grave sin."

My family, enlightened now, no longer believes that all Roman Catholics are automatically going to Hell or that all Baptists and Methodists are automatically Heaven-bound. They've come a long way. But, sadly, the Democratic Party has come a long way, too, and for our family it's now a given that most of us will vote in a way that would get us kicked out of the family if our ancestors had anything to say about it.

When I vote for president, or for any other national office, and I am speaking as a private citizen, not as the pastor of a congregation, I will not vote for a Republican or a Democrat. I will, however, vote for the candidate that sees abortion for the vicious, destructive evil that it is. Instead, I will cast a vote in the hope that the most innocent and helpless among us might have a chance to live.

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church, which meets at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Sundays at 4881 E. Highway 34. He may be contacted at 770-252-2428 or frepps@ctkcec.org.]