Coalition of Pro-Life Advocates, Pastors Unite to Support John McCain for President
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 4, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A coalition of leaders of pro-life and Christian groups met in Denver on Tuesday to unite to endorse presidential candidate John McCain. The leaders and activists said they wanted to come together behind McCain because he opposes abortion and because they consider Barack Obama’s abortion record too extreme.
The meeting of the group of about 100 pro-life leaders and activists will help McCain reach out to the majority of Americans who take a pro-life position on abortion. Presidential candidates have been traditionally aided by the pro-life vote.
Mat Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a pro-life law firm, talked with Time magazine about the endorsements.
"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," the former Huckabee backer said.
Staver said the pro-life advocates were split in their loyalties during the Republican primary and the event was an opportunity for them to come together to support a candidate in what will be a clear contrast in the general election between McCain and Obama on abortion.
"There are people who came through the primary with very mixed emotions of the candidate," Staver continued. "This event was to put those aside."
"Our shared conservative evangelical values and our concern about judicial activism compelled us to unite around the presidential candidate who most closely aligns with us,” Staver said. “That candidate is obviously Sen. John McCain.”
Some of the pro-life luminaries who participated in the gathering included Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum, Steve Strang of Charizma magazine, David Barton of Wallbuilders, and former Bush administration Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel.
“The alternative is so bad we must support John McCain,” Schlafly said after the event.
One unnamed pro-life advocate told Time that pro-life advocates would lose sleep if they stood on the sidelines not supporting McCain over a candidate who I so extreme on abortion that he twice opposed a bill to protect newborns from infanticide.
"None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn’t do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president," the participant said. "You’ve got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That’s the perspective. That that’s the whole discussion."
Rick Scarborough, founder and president of Vision America; Jim Garlow, lead pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego; Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Gary Glenn, head of the American Family Association for Michigan; and Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio, also participated in the McCain endorsement meeting.
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