America Should Turn to Values

Over the next seventeen months, various left-wing gladflies will tut relentlessly every time a Republican declares that the United States should turn toward God, as former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty recently did at a Faith and Freedom Coalition convention.

It will be heard, time and time again. Whether or not the United States should "turn back to God" is extremely debatable. Some will confuse it -- some even deliberately -- for a voiced preference for theocracy, declaring it to a violation of constituionally-mandated church and state.

(They're mistaken. It's the shariah-promoting radical Islamist groups they so often champion that are the threat to separation of church and state.)

Lingering just under the surface of that message is an idea that is not as debatable: America needs to turn to its values.

Naturally, what those values are is a matter of intense debate. It should be. The more smug anyone, conservative, liberal, progressive, or otherwise, is in declaring what America's values are, the more they should be questioned.

Pawlenty's ideas on abortion and same-sex marriage should be the subject of every bit as much debate. Pawlenty should better define his vision for proper abortion legislation. Moreover, it could be said that he lacks the imagination necessary to realize that adopted children could be raised just as well within a household based on same-sex marriage as within a traditional marriage.

But the wonderful thing about an election -- even something a little murkier as a primary election -- is that people have the opportunity to listen to political candidates explaio their views, and then vote according to what they deem their values to be.

America should turn to its values. Whether that means America turns to God, or even turns to Tim Pawlenty, will be up to American citizens to decide.