Texas Does It BIG

Thank you, Texas!  With the vote from the Lone Star State, Mitt Romney is now estimated by CNN to have 1,163 votes, over the magic 1,144 needed to secure the Republican nomination for President of the United States.  Not official yet until convention, but this is a big moment...and nicely done by Texans!  [By the way, in the spirit of gratitude for all that's gotten us to this point, may I suggest sharing the joy over at Evangelicals for Mitt...those guys are awesome!]

Congrats to Romney and team...and to all of us fighting to get our country back to strong, sustainable economic growth and a sane and smart approach to governing our nation.

Now begins the real call to arms.  We need ALL HANDS ON DECK to go up against the Obama machine.

A Few of the 23 Million

Romney's Expertise

It's About...Family

So VP Biden steps out last week and throws out there how he's OK with gay marriage, but it's the president sets policy.  Which next led to Obama being the first American president to state he's in favor of gay marriage, and - of course - says it's simply an issue of equality.

This even though more than 80% of the states have some kind of statute or constitutional amendment that protects traditional marriage as between a man and a woman.  Whenever the people actually vote on this question, they have come out in support of traditional marriage.  The most recent was the vote in North Carolina last week in which the people voted for traditional marriage by a 22% margin - dominant, that is.

Now, let's be clear.  When it comes to basic issues of personal associations and relationships, equal treatment of all people is the expectation, and unless there is clearly damage to others (an easy example is abusive relationships, etc.), we generally want to support personal freedom and choice in these relationships.  But traditional marriage touches on many issues important to society as a whole.  Marriage is more than just a contractual relationship between two people, and there are many centuries of history where the unique relationship of man and woman in a marriage relationship has been the deep foundation of family life.

I think most Americans appreciate and love the ideal of equal treatment, and yet most Americans also clearly sense and know that marriage is a unique institution and more than just a social contract.  They clearly sense that traditional marriage is imperfect (because people are imperfect) but still the best foundation for strong and nurturing family life.

So, how will this affect the election?  It's always hard to predict these kinds of things, but I'll say it now...I believe it will push some people who would otherwise vote for Obama's re-election to vote for Mitt Romney.  I certainly hope that will be the case.

One thing we have seen already is that we have the first poll since Obama came out for gay marriage, and it has Romney at 50% over Obama at 43%.  Read more on it here.  The economy and other issues will still be dominant, but I think Americans will intuitively see in this a President who thinks he knows better than the rest of us, and we will know that he is not right on this.