Submitted by: Donald Hank
Rick Perry fooled me
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 27, 2011
1:23 pm Eastern
© 2011
1:23 pm Eastern
© 2011
I admit it.
I've been intrigued with Texas Gov. Rick Perry as a potential GOP presidential candidate.
I've been impressed with what those who know him well say about his character.
I liked that he called for a prayer rally in his state with co-sponsorships from the American Family Association, Jim Dobson and Family Research Council's Tony Perkins.
I knew he had made mistakes as governor, but the state is prospering while the rest of the nation sinks into an economic morass.
But you can forget all that – and all the nice things I said and wrote about Rick Perry. I'm afraid I've wasted my time and your time. In fact, I was just dead wrong in all of my conclusions about the governor of Texas. I no longer want him to run and no longer believe he is a viable candidate. In fact, I will do all I can to warn the American people away from him.
My view of Perry changed from favorable but skeptical to highly unfavorable overnight this week after I read his comments to GOP donors in Aspen, Colo.
Essentially, Perry said he is just fine with New York state's decision to approve same-sex marriage.
"Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex," explained Perry. "And you know what? That's New York, and that's their business, and that's fine with me. That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business."
Of course, GOProud, the homosexual Republican group, was quick to praise Perry for his stand. I'm sure Perry is very proud of that endorsement.
What's wrong with his answer? So much it would take me more than one 750-word column to explain. But I will attempt to address his cowardly surrender of the national culture succinctly.
If America is to rediscover its greatness, citizens of all 50 states will need to rediscover the common values that brought us together as a nation in the first place – not just all go out and do our own thing, with every man doing what is right in his own eyes.
The only viable alternative is, quite literally, a break-up of the nation.
What Rick Perry is advocating here is cultural surrender.
Of course I recognize that the pathetic excuse for a federal government we have in Washington today is not going to do anything to challenge the decision by a handful of politicians in New York that does not even reflect the opinion of its own citizenry. That's because the Washington elite and the cultural elite in this country support the decision of the New York Legislature.
Some 31 other states have rejected same-sex marriage by popular votes. However, the 10th Amendment did not stop federal judges from overruling some of those decisions. And I didn't hear Rick Perry or GOProud denounce those decisions by activist, politically crusading radical judges with their own biases and axes to grind.
What Rick Perry is doing here is the old trick of trying to have your cake and eat it, too. He poses as an "unapologetic social conservative." But when push comes to shove, he happily capitulates to a do-nothing, say-nothing stand. That's not the kind of leadership we need in a post-Barack Obama America in 2013 – not by a long shot.
This would have been a more thoughtful response from a genuine Christian conservative from Texas: "Marriage between one man and one woman is the building block of any functional self-governing society. Abandoning a critical, time-tested, biblical institution like marriage – or redefining it according to a faddish new notion of political correctness – will have profoundly negative effects on any community, state or nation that tries it. I hope and pray New Yorkers challenge the decision by the legislature in New York because I can't believe it actually reflects their views. If we can't agree on fundamentals like marriage, the very fabric of what binds Americans together is becoming so badly frayed that we may have to consider going our separate ways."
That's what I would have expected from a prayerful governor of Texas who is flirting with running for the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States.
Evidently I was fooled by Rick Perry.
I freely admit it.
I feel unclean for the nice things I have said about him to date.
Forgive me.
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