“Social Conservatives” Report Some Success With GOP Convention Delegates
By Bill Fancher
AFR News
August 3, 2000
WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) – This week at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, pro-life supporters and other conservative advocates have been active in and around the convention center. Some are feeling their efforts are beneficial to their cause, while others are feeling they are being taken for granted.
Pro-life demonstrators have been on hand every day in the convention city with one goal in mind: “To encourage and challenge George W. Bush to appoint pro-life justices,” said one of the demonstrators.
One group of demonstrators wants to keep the issue of sanctity of life in the forefront of delegates’ thoughts. Organizer of the effort, Brandi Swindel, feels the convention attendees have been very positive and receptive to their efforts.
“There really hasn’t been a whole lot of opposition on their part,” Swindel says, “but we have definitely been here to challenge and…encourage. It’s been very beneficial, so that’s exciting.”
The pro-lifers have been stationed outside the convention center and have been holding rallies and conferences all over the Philadelphia area. Swindel says there are pro-choice activists on hand as well, but not in the same numbers as pro-lifers.
“There were a few [pro-choice activists] mixed in there,” she says, “to oppose our view on protecting life on all levels, but we outnumber them by far.” She says that fact helps make the pro-life message the dominant one at the convention.
But despite the impression being given by the convention, some social conservatives are not completely at ease with Bush. For example, most people seem to thing it is a done deal when it comes to conservative Christian support of the Republican Presidential candidate. But Pete LaBarbera of Americans for Truth says that is not the case.
“Sometimes you get tired of just waiting for scraps from G.W. Bush or whoever,” LaBarbera says.
The convention seems to imply that Bush’s election to the White House is a “slam dunk,” as some are saying. LaBarbera does not agree.
“I don’t think George Bush has a ‘slam dunk’ support from the…social conservatives,” he says. “I think most people are desperate to have Al Gore voted out.”
Biblically based social issues such as abortion and homosexuality have been absent from the speeches so far.
2000 Copyright, Agape Press.
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