Donald Trump Pushes for Gay Rights?

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host John Harris for what I hope to be a short episode, we'll see, you know if you're my audience, it doesn't always happen when

I say it should happen. But there's a lot going on and you know, there's a lot that I'm ignoring because I really want to get through this book,

Engaging with Keller. In fact, I'm planning on recording another episode today on Keller's hermeneutic.

But there's one thing that happened a few days ago, this is from the 16th, that I just thought, you know,

I cannot really ignore this. I don't think I should ignore it. I think there's a lot of questions people are going to have about it.

And to be frank, I think I still have some questions about it. And so I'm working through this,

I can't give an exhaustive answer in my mind to every question nor maybe that's not an expectation I should have.

Maybe I shouldn't feel the need to be able to do that. But I do want to at least maybe get the ball rolling with an intelligent way to process this, if possible, in a

Christian way, of course. It's an article from Politico. And I'll just tell you, it was someone sent it to me.

I'll just tell you, I don't think they mind if I told the audience who sent it to me first. Pastor Kerry Gordon from Enemies Within the

Church. Some of you are familiar with him. He was the one that texted it to me first. And then of course,

I saw other people posting this and talking about it. And I sent him, we went back and forth a little bit, and I sent him probably one of the longest texts, if not the longest text that I've written this entire year.

And just really being brutally honest and very open, not really trying to give necessarily solutions and answers to everything, but just letting him know kind of my own, if you want to call it journey, but my own feeling when it came to my vote and the importance of it and what it's intended to accomplish in my mind and why

I've, to some outsiders perhaps, and to myself included to some extent,

I've shifted on something. I've shifted on, it's either I've shifted on Donald Trump or I've shifted on my view of elections.

And I think it's very much more that I've shifted on my view of elections.

I don't think I've actually shifted that much in my view of Donald Trump. I think my standards have fallen so far, so far.

So anyway, let's read the article and then we'll talk about it. And what does this mean for 2022? Should Christians still support

Trump? Should evangelicals try to mount a third party or mount a candidate to run against Trump in the primary?

Should they support DeSantis, right? That's one of the top contenders right now who hasn't even announced, but Mike Pence's tease that he might run.

You have even people saying Glenn Youngkin could run and he's popular with evangelicals. And those who've listened to this long enough know how

I feel about Glenn Youngkin. But I think because Trump was president and because he did do a lot of things, most notably recently his

Supreme Court justice picks overturn Roe v. Wade, there's kind of a soft spot that evangelicals have for him.

And should they? Should they? Well, let's talk about it. Let's read it and then we'll go from there.

So from Politico, obviously a left -wing source, it's scenes from a celebration of the same sex marriage law at Mar -a -Lago.

We are fighting for the gay community and we are fighting and fighting hard, Donald Trump told a Log Cabin Republicans gala.

For those who don't know, Log Cabins Republicans, pro -homosexual group in the

Republican party. And they get their name because they're very pro -Lincoln and Lincoln is associated with growing up in a log cabin.

And so they call themselves Log Cabin Republicans. And this particular piece, because it's from a left -wing source,

I think some people, and I've already heard of this, are inclined to just disregard it. And in general,

I would say you definitely take this stuff with a grain of salt. But I will say this about Politico doing a piece like this.

Politico, I would think this is my assumption, human nature, right? If they want to hurt

Trump because they're left -wing and if they think that the momentum is on their side in support of homosexuality, which most left -wing media types would think, they're insulated.

And they also know the direction polling is going on this question. I saw recently, what was it, like 40 % or 45 % of even people calling themselves evangelical think same -sex marriage is acceptable, something like that.

So they're aware. And I think they, if they wanted to hurt Trump, would try to paint him as very anti -homosexual.

So covering something like this, it doesn't exactly fit their agenda unless they try to twist it, and we'll see if they do in the article, into, well, we can't really believe that Trump is pro -homosexual because he might say this, but secretly his policies are not actually favorable to homosexuals.

So in other words, what I'm trying to say is in reading this, just keep in mind that grain of salt you're giving toward media companies should include the idea that these media companies are out to hurt rivals, and Trump would be one.

Someone who's not liberal in their conception of what that should mean.

Someone who is a challenge to their authority, which Trump certainly is. So they're going to write with that slant.

So they're not going to want him to make him look good to the left. And so I'm more inclined to believe something like this from a left -wing media source than something that was just a hit piece on Trump for being anti -gay or something like that, right?

Okay, so here's what it says. Palm Beach, Florida, hundreds of guests in tuxedos, all styles, and colorful gowns, sipped on Trump -branded champagne.

They had, it says what they ate, talks about the music that they listened to, and it was their

Spirit of Lincoln Gala in the main ballroom of Donald Trump's Mar -a -Lago beachfront club. It was a joyous celebration of gay rights, according to this article.

In the case of ironic timing, the historic same -sex marriage law signed by President Joe Biden days earlier, the

Disrespect for Marriage Act, as I call it. The long -planned event in honor of conservative LGBTQ organizations' 45th anniversary brought in Republican notables like former

Ambassador Rick Grinnell, Republican Cat Kamek, a former State Department spokesperson

Morgan Ortegas, who emceed the evening in a feathered turquoise gown, and a former

GOP gubernatorial candidate from Arizona, Kari Lake, who was sworn by guests eager to meet her and take a photo, which, you know, this is interesting to me too.

This was not, this sort of, you know, I don't know, there was little things that surprised me, but in general,

I was like, yeah, Trump, that sounds like Trump would accept that. If there's people who want to praise him, it could be like his, for people who have been watching longer than five seconds,

Trump's ego is his probably biggest barrier. And that might be one of the things that helps contribute to his uncaring attitude towards what the media elites think, which we want him to kind of have that.

We want our leaders to not care what the media elites think, but at the same time, the reason for that could be somewhat important.

If Trump's ego is the biggest contributing factor, right. Not a great thing, but if you had like, you know,

Taliban for Trump or something, if they really liked Trump, you could almost see Trump's ego getting in the way and like, well, you know,

I'm gonna accept their endorsement or something. I, of course I'm kidding, but I'm just exaggerating to say, we all know that Trump, no matter what group it is, if they say nice things about Trump, Trump is usually inclined to say nice things about them.

That's just the way it works. But Kari Lake being there, that was interesting to me.

I thought, wow. And there's things about Kari Lake that, or Kari Lake, I'm not sure how you pronounce her name, which

I've been somewhat suspicious on. And someone actually gave me a whole bunch of other things to be suspicious on the other day.

And they're not like big policy things. They're things like, you know, she won't take,

I guess, both her husbands. She's been married before, but both of them, she wouldn't take their last name. And, you know, okay.

But it just obviously shows that there's, she's been somewhat affected by some feminist narrative of some kind.

She's claimed to be a Buddhist apparently for years up until like very recently, like within the last year, she's now claimed to be a

Christian. It's a very short period of time. There are things like that that just make me wonder a little bit.

Okay. You know, and her husband, I believe it was donated to Barack Obama. So it's like, you know, people change obviously, and that's okay.

People change, but it's usually good to at least acknowledge what those changes are, why they've changed, what the motivation for those changes are.

And it's good to also see someone over time show a proven track record that builds trust. With Trump, we didn't really have that very much, which is one of the reasons in 2016,

I was pretty opposed to Trump. I didn't even vote for him in the general because I really thought, you know, this guy is playing us.

And he turned out to be, I think, a much better president than I was expecting. But part of that,

I think, and I'll still stand by this. I think there was a wisdom, at least part of my motivation was there was a wisdom there with I want to see someone's track record for a few years.

I want to see them take risks. I want to see them really get beaten up over their politically incorrect stands.

And to Trump's credit, he did get beaten up somewhat in the primary. But, you know, for me, that wasn't like a long enough testing.

He's trying to compete for a job. So I was like, I don't know if that's necessarily the best place for him to be, be building trust with conservatives.

But I digress, you know, sometimes, sometimes there are genuine changes and things work out better than you thought.

And I think that's the case with Trump. McCurry Lake being there, that was a little surprise to me.

But the main attraction was Trump. He received a standing ovation after delivering an enthusiastic affirmation of gay rights, not often heard in the

GOP. We are fighting for the gay community. We are fighting and fighting hard. With the help of many of the people here tonight in recent years, our movement has taken incredible strides and strides you've made here is incredible.

Throughout the evening, speakers praise Trump for his embrace of gay community. They credit him for the initiatives to combat the criminalization of homosexuality, his work pushing for health initiatives to combat the

HIV epidemic. And for appointing the first openly gay cabinet member, Grinnell, as director of national intelligence.

Trump and his administration had a mixed record on these issues. He's been criticized for driving. So here's where what

I'd expect from Politico comes in, right? He's been criticized for driving a wedge between gay and transgender communities and for promoting extreme religious liberty policies and executive orders, they say, allowing for discrimination against LGBTQ people that push the movement backwards.

Log Cabin Republicans, first female executive director, Jerry Ann Henry resigned over...

Okay, so it's giving you a bit of a background here. Let's see what else is interesting.

Trump did not mention the law in his speech, but attendees at the gala were quick to credit the former president for all the recent missteps.

They said he has gone further on LGBTQ rights than many others in the GOP. Okay, so it goes on for a little while more.

Doesn't really give us a whole lot of information about Trump, more just the perceptions of Trump among the people who attended.

And, you know, it's not a very long article, but it just gives you in brief the situation.

And so naturally, I think the thought that arises, for a Christian reading this at least, is what are we supposed to glean from this?

What do we do in reaction to this? Does that mean we don't support Trump? Like he's off the table.

And I don't think I'm gonna answer every question out there, but I just wanna give you some categories for how

I'm thinking through this, because this hasn't been... This isn't actually a very new issue.

I think the thing that surprises some people about it is that the previous things

Donald Trump said that were pro -homosexual were usually off the hand remarks, which this probably was too, but there's more intentionality when they've planned an event at your house, right?

There's at least... His remarks might've been off the cuff, but at least the scheduling was under his authority for a while and he seemed to approve of it.

So it's in his backyard and it's more planned. The other remarks he's made where he's held up rainbow flags and obviously his campaign sold some rainbow flag type paraphernalia, it was usually on the campaign trail.

And it was him winging it. There wasn't specific policies that he was pushing and there really isn't here either.

Trump's language from what they're reporting here is pretty vague. What does it mean that we're gonna fight for the gay community? He says the same thing about Christians, by the way, we're gonna fight hard for Christians.

And I mean, he says that about every group that he wants support from. The question,

I think one of the big questions to ask is what is his actual record show? What has he done for Christians to prevent and try to at least stall the attacks on Christians?

What has he done for the homosexual community in trying to make their agenda and their goals realized?

And I think you can find examples of both. I think you can probably find more examples of Trump trying to help

Christians and stave off the aggressive secularism that is threatening

Christians. But you have to also consider this, Trump is the first president to openly upon his inauguration, and I believe

I'm correct in saying this, he endorsed on some level the concept of same -sex marriage. I remember in the campaign, even in 2016, he had gone farther by saying he wouldn't give a transgender person a problem if they came in and wanted to go into the, if it was, let's say, a male pretending to be a female, they could go in the female restroom at Trump Tower.

This was all there before 2016, or at least before 2017, before when he was inaugurated.

And that's pretty significant because you would assume that given both parties that it would be the

Democrats who would have the first president who was openly in favor of that, but they didn't. Obama was actually for traditional marriage when he first ran.

That wasn't long ago, really, it was 2008. And he supported the

Defense of Marriage Act. Sorry, not the defense. Yeah, no, the Defense of Marriage Act. Yeah, I'm right in saying that. And it wasn't until his second term that he switched positions on that.

But Trump is the first one to come in as a Republican, and really as any president, but as a

Republican, it's remarkable to actually support homosexual marriage from the beginning on some level.

And you can try to make the argument that his Supreme Court justices, though, were good picks and they'll operate by the

Constitution more. But the reality is, I think we all know this, they're not gonna touch this issue. I really don't think so.

People have even thought, well, maybe this new Disrespect for Marriage Act will be challenged.

And in that challenge, the Obergefell decision will be overturned.

Is that within the possibility? I suppose that's possible, but it's very unlikely.

It's very unlikely, given what some of the judges who were pro -life in the last major decision have said about that particular issue.

And I'm thinking of Gorsuch in particular, who before he was even nominated was a pretty pro -homosexual.

So yeah, this I don't think is going to happen the way the left wing is trying to make out like gay marriages are in jeopardy and we're just one decision away from losing it all.

And that wasn't the case before. And this law did nothing to really, if anything, the only thing this law did was gave another precedent, another excuse for punishing

Christians and those who might not even be Christians, but would oppose it. So it wasn't,

I think, about gay marriage at all, if you wanna call it that. It was about, let's take this fight to the next level.

Let's try to do something to quell any objections to it.

And Donald Trump is walking some very fine lines here because he just came out with a very aggressive pro -free speech agenda.

He also, though, hosted this. And he also is saying how pro -Christian he is.

So what's gonna happen? Because these different, if he doesn't see it yet, we certainly do, these different interests collide.

And there is no neutral ground on which you can say that they all get to operate and enjoy equal access and these kinds of things.

It's not gonna happen. I think, is it Kirk Cameron? I think Kirk Cameron right now has tried to go to, now

I think the number's 50 different libraries that have previously hosted Transgender Library Hour and Kirk Cameron has been denied access.

I'm telling you, this is the situation right now. That's what's the reality on the ground is this. You can either have the

Drag Queen Story Hour stuff and the grooming as they call it, or you can have public acknowledgements of Christianity, one or the other.

You can't really, in the United States, you cannot have a situation where both exist.

At best, that's a temporary situation and one side is gonna gain the momentum and will defeat the other side.

And Trump, this is my best reading of the situation. Trump hasn't taken a side on that. He sidestepped the whole issue.

He's not actually facing reality here and he's not alone in it, guys.

That's the bigger problem is, if there was someone who was much more qualified,

I don't even think, I've thought this for years. Even in 2020, when I voted for Donald Trump, I didn't actually think he was qualified for the office.

And I'm open to someone, Kerry Gordon wouldn't vote for Trump at all. And so I'm very open to his thinking on this and we've gone back and forth a little bit on it.

And I think, well, maybe I should wait maybe to get into why I did what I did, but I don't think

I was being hypocritical at all. And at the time, I gave a whole case for why I thought that it was important, at least for me, to vote for Donald Trump.

But at the same time, I said, don't, I'm not gonna bind your conscience. If you can't do this, I totally understand. I think though, we have, one of the factors here is, we don't have another great option really right now.

Some people say DeSantis. And I was looking up this morning, cause I was like, I know DeSantis has been not great on some issues.

He's been good on others. I happen to be friends with a former Florida state rep named Mike Hill. He was featured in the documentary,

American Monument. And one of the things that I talked about with him, and I've talked to him about DeSantis since then regarding this, or at least

I've texted back and forth is, cause it surprised me, is DeSantis seemed reluctant.

And the Republican Party in Florida in general seemed very reluctant during a very politically charged session to defend

Florida's monuments. Mike Hill, he had a bill that was intended to protect all the monuments, war memorials, not just Confederate ones or ones for the founding fathers or Columbus.

It was all of them. Even the Purple Heart Monument in Pensacola where he lives was damaged. And so he wanted a bill that was going to protect all of them.

Now, it's interesting to me that DeSantis, at least from my talking with him, did not seem very interested in this because of what it would do to the session and there were more important issues.

And politics is, of course, complex like this. But when DeSantis did get an opportunity in a very politically charged environment to do something with one of the monuments,

I believe it was General Kirby's Monument, who was from Florida, that was in Washington, DC. I think had been there since like 1922.

He decided that he would replace that. He signed a bill that would replace that with a monument of a civil rights leader from South Carolina who happened to then live in Florida.

And we can sidestep for... Because I don't think it's... The point is to get into which person better represents

Florida or any of that. The issue to me is that this decision was made in a politically charged environment as a way of appeasing the left.

That's the issue I have with it, I think more than anything else. It's just that... I don't think that's something a leader does.

A leader, at the very least, it says, look, let's calm the tempers down and then we can make a valuation of this when we're in our right minds, not in a craze for taking down anything that might be deemed offensive to the left.

Because you set a precedent when you do that. And so I've been somewhat skeptical of Ron DeSantis since I knew about this stuff.

So this morning I was like, well, what has he done on the gay marriage stuff? And it seems to me like most of the attacks are against him for the

Disney stuff and the quote unquote, don't say gay bill. But I thought it was curious.

I found this, this is from... I'll just pull it up here if I can.

This is from the website of a

Joe O'Day who's ran for U .S. Senate. Let me just read you his platform, okay?

And then I'll tell you why this connects. Joe O'Day supports abortion rights and same -sex marriage. Right on his website there.

He supports the Roe versus Wade and opposes the Supreme Court's decision to overturn it.

All right, well, this guy's a Republican and this guy was endorsed by Ron DeSantis. And I thought, it's kind of weird to me.

Like, I just can't see myself. I don't know all the circumstances of this Colorado race, but I can't see myself endorsing someone who's pro -abortion.

It would just, you know, what's up with DeSantis? And some people have complained even that DeSantis didn't go far enough and there was a 15 week ban in Florida, whatever.

But to me, this is like, this is a little bigger because it's on the guy's website.

And Trump actually attacked DeSantis for this and said, what are you doing supporting this far left candidate? A lot of the people who support

DeSantis also seem to be rhinos, like Jeb Bush. Like, well,

I can't even remember the names of all of them, but he seems to be well -loved. I mean, even

Elon Musk, I think likes DeSantis, right? Bill Maher has said, Bill Maher has signaled support for DeSantis to some extent, which is just weird to me.

Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there's just, he just comes across so competent. But when, I saw an article that like 94 % of his donations are coming from, it was either corporations or just very wealthy people.

I just thought, man, I hope the guy's not bought. And I think that's my hesitancy. And so again, this isn't like an anti -DeSantis attack.

I'm not doing that. I'm just, I have to weigh options, we all do. And the options before us so far don't seem to be that great.

And more hopefully will pop up, but they're not that great. So that's the world we live in.

And third parties to me aren't a great option either. I voted for third party twice in presidential elections, but the problem that I've generally had is that most of these guys don't actually make a serious effort to try to work through the ranks of being successful in an arena that would qualify you to be president.

They don't work their way through politics generally. They don't even try to be very successful big businessmen.

Generally, they're very principled people with very small platforms and very little to show. And that just, to me, that was one of Trump's weaknesses in 2016, even though he was a businessman in New York City and people thought that was great qualification, but the swamp ate him up,

I think partially because of that. He didn't know his way around Washington. Now, I thought in 2020, hopefully he does now.

Maybe he does more now, but he didn't have that experience before his first term. So all that to say,

I don't see any good options. And in a situation where Christians don't have good options, what do you do? Do you just vote for Trump?

Because, well, maybe he's the one that can beat, you know, that's the other thing too. Do we even have an electoral map that's possible?

But let's not talk about that. Let's just assume that possibility is, you know, Republicans can win. And do you support

DeSantis? Because he can win. Is that what you're reduced to is just supporting the person who can win? Well, I think that would be a mistake to make that your primary more, you need to consider that.

But to make that the main determining factor, I think would be wrong. And in fact, it would put you in a position of adopting a situation ethic, which

I think would be wrong. We have to avoid that. We cannot do that. We can't do a move where we say, well,

I think that leaders are only qualified if they believe this, that, and the other thing. And they're, you know, responsible and godly and virtuous.

But this guy's not, but he can win. So I'm going to suspend my principles in order to vote for this person.

That would be wrong. And there are Christians, I think, who probably did do that with Trump. I think though, and I'm gonna give you a little personal information here.

I think most people were like me in 2020, most Christians. And I don't mean this to try to project myself onto all

Christians. That's not what I'm doing. I think though that we shared some similar experiences, which made the way we think about this office different.

And the main thing that I think made us change is we no longer saw the presidency as a, or I should put it this way.

We no longer had the high view of the presidency and of the possibility of answering these open questions in godly ways that we did in 2016.

I think though that hope has kind of, we're at war, I think, in our minds now. We're not, you know, in 2016,

I'll say this. I thought, yeah, a lot of constitutional violations, a lot of problems. But I still thought, yeah, we have an evangelical

Christianity and we can through evangelism and discipleship. And we've got all these resources that people, you know, hey, even people like Tim Keller, right?

Put out there. We can somehow give, you know, people just had a biblical worldview. If we just got them in the church and they under, they knew

Jesus. And I'm not saying that I've rejected that truth. I still believe God could do a revival and if people turn back to him and are his disciples, then that changes everything.

But I think I thought it was more reachable in my mind through very traditional means, right? So not realizing that there are miracles when someone is converted.

I thought though that more like if we just got the rate up a little bit, Christians just put more effort in, right?

The Lord would bless that. And not just in the bottom up, kind of ecclesiastical realm.

I thought that top down, if we just got the right people in office. Well, now I'm not there.

And it's through a series of things that has prompted me to think differently. I've seen incredible compromise and corruption in Christian institutions, both in seminary and at grad school.

And both in Christian areas, buckles of the Bible belt places. And I'm just kind of,

I'm red -pilled as they say. I don't trust the evangelical industry.

I don't trust the medical industry now either. I used to trust them a lot more. I think a lot of you are having the same issue, especially since 2020.

I had it maybe starting earlier, but 2020 certainly exacerbated it quite a bit with, man, okay, we can't trust the media.

We can't trust social media. They even have their finger on the lever, which many of us were unaware of how they were now at Twitter's revelations.

Oh my goodness. There's so many institutions out there we trusted, we no longer trust it.

Trump, I think had earned a certain level of trust. It doesn't mean a certain level of morality. It means a certain, like he was in favor of all the policies we'd want.

It was more that he seemed to, we knew when he was exaggerating.

We knew when he was blowing smoke because he's Trump. People who watched The Apprentice knew that. But when he was sincere about something, he seemed to fight for it, whether that was because of his ego in part or he was actually principled on some things.

He seemed to fight even on controversial things. And he was very good on the monument issue, which

Governor DeSantis wasn't great on. There were things that you could see would cost him perhaps, but he didn't care.

He was gonna fight. And I think that gained him a lot of credibility with people, myself included.

Now, what it did not do was make me think that he was qualified to be the president. So John, you voted for someone for president that you don't think is qualified.

I would have to say yes. Yes, I think I did. And it was because I didn't see a better option out there for one, at least not in any options that were viable.

And I don't think I was looking for someone qualified as much as my priority was to look for someone who would allow my family, my people, myself to survive.

In other words, if you read history and you look at situations where there's starvation, where there's economic collapse, people just want the guy in office who says he's gonna give them bread and means it.

And we're not quite there. We have had destabilization, but not to the point of inflation like the

Weimar Republic had, let's say. But when you get into a situation where that does happen and people are desperate, it doesn't seem to matter how principled they are.

They eventually are just like, we need bread. It's very difficult to find someone who would just vote for his own starvation or something or not fight against hunger because they wanna be principled.

I mean, at the end of the day, we want something when it gets that desperate that's gonna serve the best interests of our families and our people.

And I think that's what I thought about Trump. I thought he's, with the range of candidates that exist out there,

Trump is going to serve the best interest of, and will at least be able to live another day.

Even though he's not qualified, he's not an evil father who's gonna give us a snake when we ask for a loaf of bread or something.

So to me, and so here's the main point. Here's what I'm trying to say. I don't believe that's situation ethics.

Situation ethics to me would be like, if I or anyone, other Christians said he's 100%, he's qualified for this position biblically because the situation merits it.

So they literally change their principles and their reading of scripture because the situation merits it. That would be wrong.

Or they just say, they disregard the standard that they had previously, that the

Bible teaches about what a leader should be because the situation merits it. That would be wrong. Those would be examples of situationism and people who do that aren't really, they're not stable.

And they can change with the wind. If you recognize that Trump's not qualified, and this particular news story,

I think reinforces it. Guys, he's not qualified. He's not someone that, it's a judgment on our country, the fact that he would even be in the

White House holding to a moral anarchy, a belief that's really amounts to immoral anarchy.

Maybe the one positive thing you can say is that at least Trump doesn't see how this contradicts religious liberty and freedom of speech and the other things he's trying to champion.

But this is a poison pill. And it's something that we should pray for Trump that he wakes up on, that he sees the problem here and that he realizes what's going on.

But Trump's doing, I think, what's best politically for his self -interest in his mind. And the hope,

I suppose, for Christians is that he also has their best interest in mind beyond the best interests of people who would, as he just praised, spread moral anarchy, sexual anarchy.

It's not a very great hope, is it? Now that you're all depressed. So that's how

I'm thinking about it. And so do I know who I'm gonna vote for in 2024? No, because I don't even know what the field's gonna look like.

But I do know that I will have a hard time trusting someone who even fills in all the right spaces.

And he holds to your beliefs, John. But he, and the biblical beliefs will say, but he doesn't actually have a history of fighting for those things.

Trump, to his credit, actually did fight for a few things. And that's, I think, why people voted for him who were

Christians in 2020, rather. Because they, at the very least, really that's,

I think, the first requirement for any leader. It's the most fundamental requirement is you are going to try to seek the best interests of your people and fight for them.

And there was too many shills out there who just didn't demonstrate that that was their thing. They could say whatever

Christians wanted to make them, whatever they wanted to hear. I saw this in Virginia when

I was there with Glenn Youngkin. I mean, you could charm a, he could charm a snake. But was there a history there of actually fighting for the things that he says he believes and shares with Christians?

No, there really wasn't. It was the opposite. And now we're finding out that, actually, it hasn't been so good.

And so all that to say, I guess, to wrap this whole thing up, this discussion, this thought about Donald Trump and what to do in 2024 is,

I think when someone, if they do, brings this up, this article that you're looking at, scenes from a celebration of same -sex marriage at Mar -a -Lago, you can say, yeah,

Trump's not qualified. You can even say it in stronger possible terms. You can say, I believe this is evil. I believe his moral judgment is impaired.

I want him to turn. And let's pray that the Lord raises up a better leader, that kind of thing.

I think that's perfectly fine. I think, though, if you're going to still support

Trump, and this would have been the same in 2020, really, you have to figure out what your expectation is, what you're trying to accomplish from a vote for president.

What that means. Does that mean, number one, is that an endorsement of all their policies? Hopefully not.

Number two, is what you're expecting Trump to do to be a great leader?

And the answer, I think, has to be, if you're a Christian and you know about this, is no, if you vote for Trump. You can't have that mindset that he's a great leader.

Don't deceive yourself with that. At least admit that what you're attempting to do is buy some time.

That you want someone who's at least going to stave off some of the most aggressive elements of anti -Christianity.

And Trump at least is willing to do that dirty work, whereas you don't see that same example, perhaps, in others.

That's, I think, the best answer that you can say while avoiding the ditch of situationism and avoiding the,

I think, what I am concerned about, which is kind of a, also, which is a sort of extreme black pill position where you just don't vote at all.

And you don't think that there's a point that everyone's corrupt, that it's all bad. And you just kind of secede from, let's face it, a blessing.

Voting is a blessing. The fact that you have, even if it's a limited say since 2020, you do have somewhat of a say in who your leaders are.

And that's unique in human history. Most peoples across time and space still today don't even have that option.

They just get whoever they get. And they just have to hope that it's going to be someone who has their best interest in mind.

But you have the option here in the United States. So what are you going to do with that? What are you going to do with that?

Hopefully, it's an inspiration for some of you to get involved in the political realm. If you're a Christian, I mean, this is one of the issues is so few

Christians want to get involved. Getting involved, starting at the local level, working yourself up, and then not losing your soul in the process.

If you start to lose your soul, then get out. Do something else. But strong people of character who won't lose their soul, who can try to, and you will be attacked.

You will have cancellation efforts. You have all those things. Or if you want to do a lateral move, get involved in big business or something where you can try to get some notoriety and at least show some responsibility, and then do what

Trump did and try to run for president. I mean, there's multiple ways to do this. But hopefully, that's an encouragement that at least start that process.

If you're not content with the leaders and the choices we have before us, then you be that choice.

If we had more of that, I think that we wouldn't be in this predicament. And in general, I have to say, even though I have my reservations about Ron DeSantis, he seems like overall he's done a decent job for Florida compared to other governors.

What if, and that's one of the reasons I really want him to stay in Florida, to be honest. What if we had 49 other

Ron DeSantis's or even just the Republican states, however many there are, 30 other Ron DeSantis's out there in all these other states?

Do you think that it would be different? Yeah, it would. Do you think that the fear that we have of the general government imposing anti -Christian measures would still be there?

Probably not as much. Probably not because you'd have states with some guts. And that's what we really need more of than even, looking to the presidency is, it wasn't even the way that our country was supposed to be set up.

Our local leaders and our state leaders should have much more control over our lives than the federal or the national government does.

But that's not the case, it seems like anymore. In some ways it is, but we constantly are looking towards the center.

And I would just encourage you, don't just look towards the center. The center should be, it's important, but it's not the only thing.

And it certainly needs to be diminished in how important it is. I would love to see that.

We'll see if that happens, but we would need a lot more courage on the local level.

If we, this is kind of my thing, if we can't even have an evangelicalism, like a Christianity, if you can't even have a church where the pastor you trust, what makes you think you're gonna get a president that's qualified, that you trust?

I mean, we're living in judgment. We're living in judgment. And in times of judgment, we need men who know what to do, who can read the times and are wise and prudent in these times.

And so I hope to be wise and prudent moving forward and evaluating all the options that come before us, not just for the presidency, but for local and state office and politics leading up to 2024.

And not just even in politics, but in other arenas as well. I hope to be a wise, discerning person, and so should you.

And do your homework. And if you disagree with me, that's okay. We're dealing with wisdom here. We're dealing with things that I think that Christians can disagree on to some extent.

Now, what I'm not saying is, John, we can vote Democrat. We can vote for someone who is pro -abortion and pro -homosexual and transgender even, and vote for someone who wants open borders and doesn't even care if America exists anymore, which is kind of where we're at now.

Some of these places, they're not even America. Linguistically, culturally, they just happen to be within the boundaries of the

United States because of our open borders. But John, we can just vote for Democrats because at least they have socialism and socialism loves people and it'll get rid of racial disparities.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Even if, that's still moral insanity if you're gonna go down that road because now you're swallowing camels and spitting out gnats at that point.

But I would argue that even the good things you think these Democrats are gonna do for Christianity, they're not. Socialism is not even biblical.

And so you don't have any arguments from the Bible to do that kind of thing. And I'm not presenting that logic to you by saying that you need to weigh options and be wise.

But when you have, let's say, I'm trying to think of a comparable situation here.

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, you are in, I get these things every two years for my bank, okay?

And you have to vote for who's gonna control, it's a credit union actually, so it's who's gonna be in charge of your credit union and stuff like that.

Board members, that kind of thing. We have a say in that. So what am

I evaluating when I get that? And I realize that most of these people probably aren't Christians. I also realize they're probably not the best option if I had someone who was a

Christian and qualified in those ways, if I had that option, but I don't. And so what am

I looking for in those? I'm generally looking for what serves the best interests of my family, who seems like they'd at least have something approximating a higher moral value judgment or ability to make those judgments.

And I think the presidency has been so downgraded and so the expectations have been so lowered and the situation has become so desperate that it's a matter at this point of survival and it's a matter of general prudence.

And the decisions become in this situation like this more temporary, as they probably should, honestly.

We're not thinking through, in 2016, we're not, I was like, well, what's a long -term solution?

Who can we get in there and then build off of that momentum to get someone better in there and just build this Christian movement?

We know that we don't have that movement. It doesn't exist. And so with that, we're more looking,

I think, at short -term, how do we just survive another four years? How does the church make it? How do we make sure that we're not gonna be severely persecuted?

We can still go preach the gospel. I mean, and that's only one issue. Those are the things that I think people are looking at more often.

And it feels a little bit more like when I'm looking at the bank, not that that's as desperate of a situation, but I'm like, who's gonna be, who's gonna at least not steal my money?

Who's gonna show some prudence, some wisdom?

I'm not expecting them necessarily to be born -again Christians. It'd be great if they were, but no one on my ballot is that.

And that's the situation that we're running into. So would it be a sin in the situation of a bank to vote for someone who's not a

Christian in that situation, who doesn't meet biblical leadership qualifications? No, I don't think it would be. And would it be a sin to vote for president?

I don't think it would be. Unless of course your logic is, I'm gonna suspend, I'm gonna change all those qualifications and I'm gonna whistle

Trump's tune because I like him and now I'm on team Trump.

You have to be able to correct this stuff. You have to be able to be honest. Or your kids will also see the hypocrisy if you're married and have kids.

They will see that you're against same -sex marriage, but boy, when it came to Trump, you sure seem to be okay with him.

You gotta make those distinctions. All right. Well, there's probably much more that I could say. And I'm sure this will satisfy like three people.

There's probably gonna be a bunch of people in the audience that are gonna be on one side or the other on this question.

But I encourage you take your ideas. I'm open to reading. Take them to the comment section. And I would love to hear if you have

Bible verses that you think speak to this or principles, you know, let's listen, let's hear them. I mean, I've been thinking about this stuff for years and it's certainly not been fun watching the judgment continue in this country.

But the hope has got to be ultimately in the fact that I was actually just reading this morning about this. God does protect his own, even in situations of judgment.

You think of the situation under Ahab and the drought that was happening and the widow and her son that Elijah ended up, you know, doing a miracle for essentially, you know, not everyone.

There were other widows I'm sure in Israel at that time. But why them specifically? Well, God obviously has the power to protect.

In fact, there's a verse, if I can pull it up right now, when I was texting back and forth with Kerry Gordon a little bit about this.

And this was encouraging. And I just wanna pass this encouragement to you. And I think he accurately noticed something.

2 Peter 8, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw in her day after day.

Do you feel like Lot? Yeah, I kind of feel like Lot. I do. Man, I'm living in Sodom and Gomorrah and I'm vexed.

What's the next verse though? What's the next verse? Well, the next verse says this, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

So we gotta have an eternal focus and realize this isn't the end. And that there are greater forces at work than we are even accustomed to noticing or seeing.

And put your hope in them. Be careful of putting too much hope in horses and chariots. And I would include