Ballot Boxing: Slam Bill Clinton, but praise Donald Trump?

For Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., the backlash against his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump this week was swift and stinging. A network of alumni from the evangelical school expressed dismay over the announcement on Tuesday.

Falwell declined an interview request from WORLD, but he responded to the criticism in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

When it comes to significant questions about Trump’s character—he’s been married three times, bragged about past sexual promiscuity, and boasts of his love of money—Falwell wrote, “Jesus said ‘Judge not, lest you be judged.’ Let’s stop trying to choose the political leaders we believe are the most godly. …”

It’s an odd argument from a leader who once compared Trump’s blunt style to his late father, Jerry Falwell Sr., the founder of the 1980s Christian political group the Moral Majority.

Falwell Sr. was indeed blunt: He assailed former President Bill Clinton, and said he should leave office because of his sexual sins with a White House intern in the mid-1990s: “There’s no question Bill Clinton has lowered the moral bar for political office holders in America.”

Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime Republican and pro-life advocate and founder of the conservative Eagle Forum, endorsed Trump last year. Schlafly has particularly supported Trump’s stance on immigration. But she also once decried the negative cultural effects of President Clinton’s moral failures.

In 1999, The Baltimore Sun noted that the Eagle Forum issued a press release lamenting a reported trend of disturbing sexual activity among middle school students and connecting the trend to Clinton’s adultery.

“This is the legacy that Bill Clinton has left our country,” Schlafly wrote, according to the article. “Anyone who disagrees with the fact that Bill Clinton has shaped this behavior, only needs read one quote from [The Washington Post] article that came directly from a young girl: ‘What’s the big deal? President Clinton did it.’”

One could imagine a similar question if Trump becomes president.

Meanwhile, a host of women in the national pro-life movement urged Iowa’s Republican voters to choose “anyone but Trump” at Monday’s caucuses.

The statement included signatures from Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, Penny Nance of Concerned Women of America, and Jennifer Bowen of Iowa Right to Life.

The release noted that Trump said his sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, would be a “phenomenal” choice for the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Barry struck down the partial-birth abortion ban in New Jersey. Trump has also defended abortion giant Planned Parenthood, saying abortions were a “small part of what they do.”

Speaking of Planned Parenthood, GOP candidate Mike Huckabee responded to a Texas grand jury’s indictment of pro-life advocate David Daleiden over his undercover videos exposing the abortion group’s practices.

Huckabee tweeted:

Its a sick day in America when our govnt punishes those who expose evil w/ a cellphone—yet accommodates those who perform it with a scalpel.

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) January 25, 2016

Back in Iowa, Republican candidates made a final push ahead of the caucuses slated for Monday. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, picked up a significant endorsement from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins ahead of the nation’s first nominating contests.

And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., spent lots of time on the stump talking about his Christian faith. In one fascinating encounter in Iowa, Rubio calmly and winsomely responded to an atheist who worried Rubio was running for “pastor-in-chief.”

“I’m a Christian, but I can’t force you to be a Christian,” Rubio responded. “Salvation is a free gift. … You can’t force it on people. You have the right to believe whatever you want.”

He also told the crowd, “If you don’t believe Judeo-Christian values influenced America, you don’t know history. This nation was founded on the principle that our rights come from our Creator. If there’s no Creator, where did your rights come from?”

“No one’s going to force you to believe in God,” Rubio told the atheist. “But no one’s going to force me to stop talking about God.”

It’s worth watching the entire video: