After my recent WND column mentioned having collaborated with Tulsi Gabbard’s Dad, Mike Gabbard, back in the 1990s (drafting the Framingham Declaration defining the natural family I received several emails questioning whether Tulsi Gabbard should be welcomed into the MAGA movement given her mixed voting record as a Democrat.
Tulsi famously renounced the Democrat Party recently, saying “I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
Since then she has become a rising star in MAGA political circles for her ringing endorsement of top Trump-backed candidates like Kari Lake.
The main concern I’m hearing from Christians regards her voting record on abortion which is very mixed. On the hopeful side she has taken some strong pro-life stands. The following is from a Yahoo News story of December 16, 2020, quoting a press release from Democrats For Life in America:
“Former Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard introduced her SECOND Pro-Life bill this week, which would amend Title 18 of the U.S. code to give pain-capable fetuses rights under the law,” DFLA wrote on Facebook. “Tulsi has previously voted against this bill three times, but is now the SPONSOR of the new bill. This is proof that DFLA can convince Democrats to join the right side of history.”
Whether this sudden switch represents the true face of Tulsi Gabbard or a tactical post-election shift of political expedience to better align with the MAGA movement is uncertain. Her upbringing might suggest that IS her true face, because her Dad was one of the strongest pro-family champions I have known, and she worked in a couple of his anti-LGBTism organizations.
But when push came to shove in the LGBT political battles in Congress in 2012, Tulsi apologized to the “gays” for her earlier pro-family stance and began pushing for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act – a gross betrayal of the pro-family cause on one of the most fundamental of pro-family issues: the sanctity of marriage. She then became a reliable member of the House LGBT “Equality Caucus” with a voting record consistently above 83% from the Human Rights Campaign during the same years HRC was attacking me as Public Enemy #1 of the global LGBT agenda.
I must admit that I had a much more favorable opinion of Tulsi Gabbard before I started researching her – and I based my theme and title for this article on that prior opinion. But after a couple hours of research I must say I really don’t trust her. Her resume is impeccably tailored to help her 1) rise high in the political realm, including her attainment of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve, and 2) prove that she is pragmatic enough to serve whatever agenda the dominant power of the day demands in exchange for power of her own. She now wants power in the MAGA movement and is taking pro-family positions again on issues like the Florida Parental Rights Bill, and opposition to the transgender agenda. The leftist LGBTs have renounced her, while Trojan Horse MAGA homosexuals like Glenn Greenwald (whom I respect as a writer but condemn for selfishly using children as props to normalize homosexual parenting) have defended her.
My gut tells me that Tulsi Gabbard is genuinely pro-life and pro-family at heart, but doesn’t consider the principles important enough to stand on at the cost of losing power. I could never do that, which is one reason I have never held political power and lost both my elections for Governor of Massachusetts.
Importantly, Tulsi is not a Christian but a Hindu, which brings me around to the theme of working with non-Christians on the natural rights which are common to all the world religions and the vast majority of the people of the world.
Tulsi Gabbard is not the person I thought she was when I sat down to write this article, and she doesn’t exemplify a true natural rights advocate, in the same way that, for example, the Muslim parents in Michigan do that have joined with MAGA activists to oppose the transgender agenda in the public schools. Those Muslim parents, for all their differences from Christian parents on other matters, are genuinely principled people on the issue of parental rights regarding sexuality.
But even Tulsi, when circumstances allow her to get away with standing for natural rights without losing her power, will do so. So in a sense she may be an even better exemplar of the “average American” who says what they need to say to avoid being attacked for “bigotry” – but deep down knows right from wrong and wants the right to prevail. And isn’t that exactly who Donald Trump is drawing out by the millions to his rallies – where in the safety of huge numbers they can shout the things they have previously been afraid even to whisper.
Natural rights include especially the rights of the natural family: the right to life, parental rights, the right of children to a real Mom and a real Dad, the right of families to dictate school policies, the right of family-centered communities to set the state’s standards on all things related to children and families. These are self-evident universal rights all humanity recognizes, and only a tiny soulless strata of elitist ghouls want to destroy.
It would help all of humanity for the MAGA movement to intentionally develop a natural rights coalition that welcomes all the world’s theistic religions and ethnic groups. Because if we normal people who love marriage, children and family all banded together and restored those natural rights across the world, 95% of our social and geopolitical problems would be resolved, and the elites would be exposed for the tiny, insane radical fringe they have always been. And people like Tulsi could just be themselves on the issues most important to civilization.
Because I knew her Dad and respect her upbringing on natural rights issues, I welcome Tulsi Gabbard to the MAGA movement, on a probationary basis, until she proves that she really is pro-life and pro-family by publicly defending those principles at real cost to herself and not just as a political maneuver to curry favor with Trump. She brings a lot to the team, but not yet political integrity.
