In USA Today, David Gushee writes a plea to evangelicals suggesting that evangelical Christians should not be “married to the Republican Party.” I agree. But I think Gushee overlooks something vitally important when he writes,

Conservative evangelicals generally offer an unbiblically narrow policy agenda focused on just a few moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage instead of tackling the full range of biblical concerns, which include poverty, oppression and war.

There is no doubt that poverty, oppression, and war are important issues.  However, if you believe that an unborn baby is a living human being with the right to life, then abortion has killed millions of children in the 30+ years since Roe v. Wade.   As much as I might agree with a politician on a broad range of issues, I find it impossible to support someone – Republican or Democrat – who thinks that abortion is either no big deal or a fundamental human right.  And I think many evangelical Christians feel exactly like I do.

The Republican Party platform opposes abortion.  The Democratic Party platform states “we stand proudly for a woman’s right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay.”  I wish that it weren’t as simple as that – I wish that I had a legitimate choice between two or more political parties who opposed killing unborn children.  There’s a lot about the Republican Party that I dislike.  But I could no more vote for a pro-choice Democrat (or a pro-choice Republican) than I could vote for a candidate who accepted slavery as a moral right.