Son, Age Four: “Will you be thirty-three in December?”

Me: “Yes, I will.”

Son: “I’ll make your cake with black frosting.”

Unless the vast majority of Focus on the Family’s listeners are smart enough to restrict their application of your words to raising their children and not voting for president, you are going to cause a split. You will split voters every bit as desperate for the end of abortion as you are between two candidates, whoever they are, and give somebody committed to the continuation of abortion as a Constitutional right the presidency.

You are being utterly irresponsible, self-important, and delusional as to the amount of influence you actually have. You may have enough to get the split. You do not have enough to defeat the larger of two evils–the lesser of which, a candidate who will appoint judges who may overturn Roe v. Wade, can hardly be called an evil but an important first victory. You will play a large part in continuing the shame and depravity of abortion at will. You are being reckless.

Love,
A Christian

P.S. Do you think the NYT rubbed its hands and cackled over a column from you because of its sterling family values?

Update: More principle-led nobility naivete:

The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles. In the present political climate, it could result in the abandonment of cherished beliefs that conservative Christians have promoted and defended for decades. Winning the presidential election is vitally important, but not at the expense of what we hold most dear.

You are being obtuse. (“Obtuse! Is it deliberate?”) Winning the election is not important for the sake of winning; it is important for the very issue you claim to have so much at heart. Losing the election, let me say again, will mean the presidency in the hands of somebody who cherishes abortion as a right, or claims to do so out of pandering to pro-abortion women. It will mean a president who will appoint judges not set to retire or die in the next ten years who will uphold Roe v. Wade when it comes before them. Query, sir: Did you support George W. Bush for president? What has he done for this issue other than appoint good judges who know that Roe v. Wade is bad law?

Quit with the “they’re not Christian enough” rhetoric. Vet their possibilities for the Supreme Court. And then tell us you’re not doing the unborn a grave disservice by continuing in this line of polemics.

Update x2: An outright threat:

If the major political parties decide to abandon conservative principles, the cohesion of pro-family advocates will be all too apparent in 2008.

If by “cohesion” you mean all anti-abortion voters will vote for a no-chance candidate strictly because he mouths platitudes against abortion while actually being relatively powerless to affect the issue one way or another, then you can count me out. Not for me, my brother. Not for me.

Boston weekend starts tomorrow! I’ll probably have pictures to post when I get back.

Sippican Cottage has been posting helpful and descriptive information about Boston all week. How did he know?