Today’s Democratic Party is apostate – not that the Republican Party is the epitome of virtue, mind you (far from it).  But as a Christian voter primarily faced with these two “evils,” I find the political options to be hypothetically similar to having to choose between voting for Lot or casting a vote for the ringleader of the Sodom/Gomorrah rape gang trying the break down his door; though I would not be thrilled with either candidate, it would certainly not be a difficult decision to make.  Likewise, for an evangelical Christian to vote for a national Democratic ticket in its current form would be tantamount to a German Jew circa 1933 supporting the Nationalist Socialist Party of Adolf Hitler: both votes would make absolutely no sense.  And yet, by voting Democratic, many evangelicals exhibit a political mindset not unlike that of unbelievers, which is inexcusable.

Let’s be frank.  The modern Democratic Party is unambiguously arrayed against the Kingdom of God – and this, explicitly so.  At their last national convention, the attendees actually took up the issue of removing any reference to God from their party platform.  It was only through heavy-handed voter suppression perpetrated by that party’s ruling elite that God was finally allowed to stay – and this, only because of the public relations nightmare (are the Democrats actually opposed to God?) should the secular hard core have gotten what it wanted.  However, even after saving God for the time being, there is no indication from Democratic leaders that they are committed to anything other than preserving their power at any cost.

Yet, as a Christian living in America, I am called to shine the light of God’s Word on both political camps, and use biblical law as the standard of any righteous measurement and guide as to how I ought to vote.  To demonstrate, I will utilize the 10 Commandments throughout the remainder of this article.  Assuming that both political parties fall woefully short of the first book of the Decalogue (Commandments 1-4) pertaining to our conduct toward God, I will focus only on those ordinances dealing with our relationship to others (Commandments 5-10).

5^th Commandment: Honor your father and your mother

The divinely-instituted nuclear family is the most basic unit of government.  It constitutes the first authority structure we encounter at birth.  Therefore, if we cannot submit to the authority of our parents, how much more so will we defy other earthly rulers?  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has virtually declared war on the traditional family via their redefinition of marriage.  Their policies also undermine parental authority, such as supporting child emancipation (the alleged civil right of children to “divorce” their parents) or in right to privacy matters, where young teens can access contraception and, in some cases, abortions, legally without their parents’ consent.  Furthermore, the Democratic-sponsored welfare legislation has encouraged a proliferation of single mothers with the state inadequately taking the place of the father in rearing out-of wedlock children.  We are paying a high social price for this experiment, especially within minority communities.

6^th Commandment:  Thou shalt not kill

The Bible places a higher premium on the value of the unborn over fully developed adults (see Ex. 21:22-25), yet the pro-choice movement – firmly aligned with the Democrats – dehumanizes the unborn.  According to Scripture, to kill a baby in the womb is a capital offense, warranting the death penalty, and yet ironically the Democrats have become the party obstructing the just execution of murderers while at the same sanctioning murder in the guise of partial-birth abortions.

And then there is the “right to die” movement.  Jack Kevorkian (“Dr. Death”) led the way with physician-assisted suicides.  One could argue that at least such deaths were voluntarily made by the patients.  But one could not say the same in the tragic case of Terry Schiavo, the woman in a near-vegetative state (unable to speak but able to respond to external stimuli) who was legally starved to death simply because her former husband – who had already moved on to another woman – wanted Terry dead, against the wishes of her parents.  The “husband” won the court battle, and later ran for Congress in Pennsylvania, campaigning on the issue of the right to terminate those lacking in quality of life; any guess as to which party he belonged? (hint: is was not the Republican party).

Because God is the author of life, only He has the authority to appoint death.  The state’s God-given authority to terminate life must be within biblical guidelines, and abortions and assisted suicide, which are overwhelmingly supported by Democrats, do not meet this criteria.

7^th Commandment:  Thou shalt not commit adultery

The taboo against pre- and extra-marital sex are waning in today’s moral climate.  While politicians from both parties have been notorious philanderers, at least the Republican candidates pay lip service to the importance of heterosexual monogamy – even if hypocritically so (e.g. Newt Gingrich).  But notice how the Democratic Party circled the wagons to support their sexual predator-in-Chief, Bill Clinton, by defending his adultery as a non-sexual act in spite of the contravening evidence provided by Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress.  Chastity is not a virtue much emphasized in Democratic talking points, to put it mildly. For instance, Democrats in the House of Representatives recently gave a public platform to the morally dissolute Sandra Fluke, who lectured the nation on the importance of tax-subsidized contraception so that she could continue the sexually libertine lifestyle she adopted while in college.  Fluke later ran for office (again, guess for which Party?).

Out of wedlock births have serious consequences, and the Democrats’ primary answer to this problem is tax-funded abortions – not promoting sex within the confines of marriage only.  Not surprisingly, it is primarily their constituents who are procreating outside of marriage at an alarming rate out of proportion with the societal mainstream.  Making matters worse, mothers who separate from their husbands receive more financial aid than those who do not, regardless of the moral and social toll on the children raised in a home without a father (prisons are filled to brim with convicts who know their mothers but not their biological fathers).  Democratic policies do not arrest this dangerous social trend but, in fact, fuel it.

8^th Commandment:  Thou shalt not steal

This commandment presupposes the right to private property ownership and yet, in our society, one can readily detect in political discourse the tacit assumption that government must regulate the property of others in order to ensure a fairer distribution of it.  This is Marxist, and the Democratic Party has been a safe-haven to Marxist-leaning critics of free enterprise.  Take, for example, the socialist presidential contender Bernie Sanders who, as Vermont’s Congressional representative, only caucuses with the Democrats.  Likewise, labor unions – second cousins to Marxists (i.e. syndicalism) – are also a mainstay of this party.  After all, it was a Democratic president (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) who forced businesses to recognize unions and to negotiate with them.  And it has been Democrats – not Republicans – who insist that government and not the employer has the exclusive authority to mandate a minimum working wage.

But being a Christian, I must take seriously a certain parable of Jesus that thoroughly undercuts the legitimacy of labor unions and government interference with labor relations.  In his parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt.20:1-16), Jesus used a business analogy to illustrate the manner by which our Heavenly Father remunerates those who labor for His kingdom.  The obvious moral of this parable is that unequal pay is not automatically unjust, and that it is the prerogative of the employer – not the worker – ultimately to set the pay scale, thus leaving the laborer free either to accept the employer’s terms or to seek employment elsewhere.  To quote the owner of the vineyard (who, incidentally, represents God in the grand scheme of things): “Am I not allowed to do [pay] what I choose with what belongs to me?”

Not any more.  Democratic policies have led to a Messianic state, which in turn, deprives people of the free and rightful use of their own property.  Environmental regulations on businesses are a case in point, with calls to end human-caused “climate change” the latest vehicle for Democrats to increase the size and scope of government.  Biblically speaking, this is theft on the part of the state.

9^th Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor

We are prohibited from lying about others or spreading false information – even accidentally.  Since both Democrats and Republicans are politicians, and politicians are renowned liars, let’s assume for the sake of argument that both parties are equally guilty of violating this commandment (I do contend, however, that one party has proven itself to be better at lying than the other party).

10^th Commandment:  Thou shalt not covet

Whereas the 8^th Commandment assumes the right of individuals to own property, the 10^th presupposes the unequal distribution of this property.  But notice that the Bible’s response to this inequality of goods is not to condemn it but, rather, to prohibit an attitude of discontentment with our own material condition.

Now, what is the Democratic Party’s answer to such inequality? – “It’s not fair!”  The rich are rich, we are told, not through their hard work but only because they acquired this wealth at the expense of others (Pres. Obama: “You didn’t build that!”).  Whereas the Bible praises the righteous man who lays up an inheritance for his children’s children (Prov. 13:22), Democrats are eager proponents of a death tax intended to redistribute the hard-earned capital of others.  Implicit in this law is the assumption that no one ought to have any more property than what the government deems as reasonable (of course, the ruling elite gets an automatic exemption).

The Democratic Party has long excelled in fanning the sin of coveting among their constituency for political advantage.  For instance, New York City Democrats preyed on classed resentment in the mayoral election of 1801, by caricaturing their political opponent in their handbills, saying that the Federalist mayor “hates you; from his own soul he hates you. . . ; do your duty and . . . you will get rid of a mayor who acts as if he thought a poor man had no more right than a horse.”  Doesn’t this rhetorical hyperbole sound eerily familiar?  Are we not told by today’s Democrats that the Republicans are the party of the wealthy (e.g. Romney’s dog and Bush Sr. having been “born with a silver foot in his mouth”) – that it is the Republicans who have declared war on women, children, and minorities?  Unfortunately, rather than combat the sin of coveting, Democrats have capitalized on it by incorporating this sin into their very ideological core.  This explains why this party routinely stokes class envy, racial divisions, and feminist resentment.  In short, the Democrats cater to the worst elements of human nature, telling their voters that it is okay to covet what other people have, and promising that they will satisfy all the desires of a sinful heart through their government largesse.  This warrants one humorous definition of a liberal: a person so generous as to give you the shirt taken from somebody else’s back!

And yet, we are commanded to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). Thanks to God’s infallible Word, it is clear as to which political party the Christian ought to be wary of, and which party the Christian ought to avoid electing at all costs.  It is not my argument that the evangelical Christian has to vote Republican, but it is my argument that to vote Democratic would be suicidal.  For that reason, I see no scriptural warrant for supporting today’s Democratic Party.