In 2008, I started a new job at a Christian school in Windham, Maine. All three of our daughters transferred from the school where I had previously taught to the one in Windham. While our youngest daughter, Rose, was only in the second grade, our other two girls were both in high school. We found Windham to be more affluent than our prior school, and the administration was very forward thinking and ambitious. But no institution is perfect, and there was one very influential family who immediately proved that to be true of Windham Christian as well. The father was a very outspoken "family values" politician in Augusta, and his son was the bully of the high school.
As you may remember, 2008 was an election year, and during the first month in 14 year old Naomi's new social studies class, they were discussing the election. Naomi, always encouraged to speak up when given an opportunity, said something like this: "I think Obama's approach of health care and education would do more to decrease the number of abortions in our country than McCain's plan of merely turning the issue over to the individual states." Forgive me if I sound like a boastful dad, but I think that's pretty well reasoned for a 14 year old. Not to be outwitted by her logic, the family values Representative's son began calling her a 'baby killer'. As is often the case, other classmates added to the harassment, if only because they were glad they were not the victim of his abuse for once.
The administration of the school dealt with this appropriately, in spite of a now retired social studies teacher who offered nothing more than "Boys will be boys". Naomi never backed down from her statement in class, and, in 2012 had her first chance to cast a ballot herself. That's right, she voted for President Obama. All of this came flooding back to my memory when I saw this and several similar articles: http://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/abortion-US/statsandfacts.html
If you read it, you will see that abortion is at an all time low, and has been steadily on the decline since 2008. Now I don't pretend that the Obama presidency has everything, or even a lot, to do with this. Depending what article you read, credit for the decline is attributed to any number of things, and more to the point, credit is denied any number of things. Catholic sources say it has nothing to do with better birth control; pro choice groups say it has nothing to do with pro life demonstrations and lobbying; conservatives say it has nothing to do with health care. Regardless, it was under Barack Obama's watch that abortion has had its biggest decrease in American history. Apparently Naomi was right.
As for her classmate, he never made it to graduation from WCA; His dad served his last term in Augusta and is now studying to become a pastor (Lord help the church); Naomi is arguably the most loving person I know, who would do anything she could to help a mom through a difficult pregnancy - in fact she is currently doing just that with a lifelong childhood friend.
As for me, I learned that no one deserves my support just because they attach the adjective "Christian" or "family values" to themselves. I learned that one does not have to be a political lemming to follow Christ, nor should one be. In fact, I have learned that politics has very little to do with what God is doing in the world, and is often an excuse for people of faith to do as little as possible of the stuff that matters most. Finally, I learned that my years of teaching at my daughters' schools, raising them to be active in ministry and encouraging them to examine complex issues thoroughly is much more pro-family than is a father who lets his kids run out of control while trying to change the world from the state capital building.