2012 - The YEar I Became Too Conservative for the Republican Party

Many people assume that my political positions come from my dislike of Trump, but I actually worked out most of my views on politics and government during Obama's first term from 2008 to 2012.

In 2008, a friend accused me of being ignorant about the history and foundations of the positions that I held, and I realized that he was right. I understood some of the bigger philosophical positions like why capitalism was better than socialism, but at the ripe old age of 27, I had never taken the time to fully understand the reasons for my various political positions.

I determined to remedy that situation, and I spent the next 4 years studying and working through my position on various political issues. I decided that I would no longer agree with the Republican Party by default. If the Republican position on an issue was based on solid biblical principles and sound reasoning, then I would agree with the Republicans. If the Democrat position was based on solid biblical principles and sound reasoning, then I would agree with the Democrats. If both parties took positions that contradicted the Bible and were irrational, then I would take an independent position. In other words, I determined that I would follow God rather than man in my politics no matter where that might lead.

I was naive enough to think that my decision would be welcomed by my Christian friends. Why wouldn't they appreciate my efforts? I was volunteering to do the hard work of studying out our positions and developing strong biblical defenses for them. Of course, I was also naive enough to think that my study wouldn't produce any real changes in my views.

At first, things went fairly well. I wrote a biblical defense for Christian involvement in politics. I wrote about the dangers of socialism, and I read the entire Affordable Care Act to expose the flaws inherent in government subsidized healthcare. I also wrote and published a book defending the Christian beliefs of America's founding fathers. I even found documents proving that Benjamin Franklin had converted from Deism to Christianity. My Republican and conservative friends welcomed all of this with open arms.

That welcome started to wear away in 2011 when I began studying two specific issues: abortion and homosexuality. My study of these two issues opened my eyes to the fact that the public stance of the Republican Party had a much stronger moral foundation than most Republicans realized. I began to write about God's absolute hatred for these two sins and His commands for governments to criminalize them, and that's when things started getting a bit dicey.

Late in 2010, I helped found Personhood Alabama, an organization that advocated for complete criminalization of abortion based on the 14th Amendment's requirement that states protect the right to life for every person. I spent most of 2011 studying the biblical and constitutional arguments against abortion. This phase of my campaign against the murder of prenatal children was received well by the Republicans.

My work on the issue of homosexuality, on the other hand, was opposed from the start. In February of 2012, I published my study "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality" along with a video of me presenting that study at my church. I presented proof that the Bible requires governments to severely punish this sin, and I quickly found this to be a bridge too far among so-called conservatives.

Two groups found this statement particularly egregious, the Young Republicans and the Christian apologetics community. Both groups began criticizing my arguments on Facebook, and I was eventually kicked out of several local and national apologetics communities. Older Republicans weren't ready to break ties with me yet, but they cautioned me against speaking up too loudly on this issue.

In May of 2012, I published my article "Ectopic Personhood" which presented my discovery of hundreds of children born from ectopic pregnancies. At first, this article was gladly accepted by the Republicans. I was invited to be a guest on the nationally syndicated Dr. Gina Show, and leading figures in the pro-life community began sharing my research. Abby Johnson even shared on Facebook that she had heard about ectopic survivors at a conference while she was still employed by Planned Parenthood.

Everyone was excited about my work until they realized that it eradicated their excuse for keeping abortion legal. When I presented a resolution at my local GOP club calling for a repeal of the abortion exception to Alabama's fetal homicide law, state party leaders ordered my club to not even vote on the resolution, and I soon became anathema throughout the pro-life community.

Alongside these studies, I also searched the Scriptures to see if I could vote for politicians who disagreed with the Bible on the issues of abortion and homosexuality. I was learning much about why I opposed these sins personally, but I needed to know how God expected my personal convictions to be applied in the practical world of politics.

I published my first article on Christian voting in March of 2012, and I ended up writing 7 articles on that topic over the course of the year. I discovered that God had laid out in Scripture six minimum qualifications for political leaders, and I determined that I would no longer vote for candidates who failed to meet those six qualifications.

If you recall the 2012 presidential race, you'll remember that the Republican nominee was Mitt Romney. Romney is a Mormon who meets none of the six biblical requirements for political leaders. He also promotes both homosexuality and abortion. I determined that I could not vote for a man who publicly denied Christ, and I announced my decision to vote for a third-party candidate instead.

That announcement got me disinvited from several in-person and virtual Republican groups that had previously endorsed my views. I found that my most vocal opponents were no longer the skeptics, atheists, and agnostics that I had debated over the previous decade. Now, my commitment to study and obey God's Word was being criticized by other Christians who wanted me to keep my Bible out of their political discussions. Intriguingly, the Christians opposing me used many of the exact same arguments that I had faced when I was debating atheists.

Another issue that I investigated in 2012 was that of immigration. I initially praised and defended Alabama's 2011 anti-immigrant law, but as I studied the historical arguments against abortion, I started seeing biblical and political correlations between the rights of children and the rights of immigrants. These two classes are directly linked in many passages of Scripture, and their legal standing in America is based on the same Constitutional amendments and the same underlying political philosophy.

This intrigued me, and I began studying the history of America's immigration policies. I soon learned that the current Republican position on immigration is based on the socialist eugenics philosophy that was rampant in the prestigious universities of the early 20th century. This position lacked any sort of theological support until James Hoffmeier's 2009 book "The Immigration Crisis" which I read and refuted in 2017. I ended up changing my view on immigration because I found that the current Republican position is antithetical to both the Bible and the Constitution, and it is the exact opposite of the view that has historically been championed by conservatives.

All four of my major disagreements with the Republican Party were developed during Obama's presidency long before Trump was on anyone's radar as a political figure. I solidified my views on abortion and homosexuality in the years leading up to the 2012 election. My position on Christian voting was developed during the 2012 election season, and my position on immigration began to change that same year. I don't hold my positions because of my opposition to Trump. On the contrary, my opposition to Trump is founded on a solid and robust set of biblical principles that I developed long before I even knew he existed.