In 1976, I voted for Jimmy Carter for president of the United States.

Like many in America, I was tired of hearing about Watergate, disgusted

with the Nixon pardon issued by President Gerald Ford, and ready for

a change.

I was one of those "undecided" voters on Election Day. In

fact, I didn't know who I was going to vote for until I walked into

the polling place in Chuckey, Tenn., and was offered a peanut by a

poll worker. "Why not?" I thought, and voted for the peanut

farmer. It was the last time I ever voted for a national Democrat.

Voting for Democrats was a given in my family. We were Southerners

and it was those %#$&* Republicans and %#$&* Yankees who had

ruined our blessed South for the past hundred years. The South was

solidly Democratic. To vote for a Republican, the party of Abraham

Lincoln and the Yankee marauders, was, to a Southern Baptist or Methodist,

the equivalent of going to the Roman Catholic Church; both actions

could land you in Hell. Most of my family didn't even know any Republicans

or Catholics.

That all changed when George McGovern ran for the presidency. My grandfather,

a pipefitter and a staunch union man, couldn't stomach the views of

ultra-liberal McGovern and cast a vote for Richard Nixon. When he fell

ill later that year, he was certain that God was punishing him. "Jesus," after

all, "rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not on an elephant!"

When, in 1980, my parents voted for Ronald Reagan, it marked the end

of an era. It wasn't that my folks were all that "Republican," it

was that they felt abandoned by the Democrats. My parents were conservative

to the core. They would have been proud of Zell Miller and would have

voted for him had they lived in Georgia. He was a true Democrat in

the Southern Democratic tradition, they would have felt. Zell had convictions,

courage, integrity and, above all, guts. When the Democrats, In their

view, lost all these things and went after lofty, liberal, leftist

ideals, those who considered themselves "true" Democrats

were left behind.

For my part, I quit voting for people whose surrogates offered me

peanuts (oh, that others would also learn that lesson) and became more

aware of the issues. I cannot and will not, for example, vote for a

candidate that is in favor of the slaughter of 4,000 babies a day in

American's abortion mills. To me it is the central abomination of our

day, as slavery was the central abomination of the 1860s. America

has suffered for slavery and, I believe, will suffer for this sacrilege

as well.

I considered not voting for Johnny Isakson for the U.S. Senate because

the National Right to Life Organization gives him a pro-life approval

rating of 80 percent. Where I went to school, 80 percent was a few

points above a "D." Unless he improves, if he wins, I will

not vote for him in the next election. His opponent received a 0 percent

approval, which, in any school system is an "F." So, this

year, he gets my vote.

I believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe that she can choose

or not choose to have unprotected, unrestricted sex. Men have that

choice as well. Once she and he choose to have sex, I do not believe

in the right to kill a child conceived because a bad, usually immoral,

choice was made. I believe in "pro-choice." I choose life

over death. In my view, the Democratic Party has become the party of

death and, truthfully, in my view, that one plank outweighs all the

rest of the lumber in the platform.

A friend said to me a few weeks ago, "I have no love for the

Republicans ... if the Democrats would get off their pro-choice stance,

I'd vote for the Democrats." Others apparently feel the same way.

Most evangelicals will vote for the Republicans because they believe

them to be more morally right than the Democrats. Catholics are historically

Democrats, but in national elections, they face a real dilemma due

to the fact that the Democratic Party supports a position that the

Vatican considers a "grave sin."

My family, enlightened now, no longer believes that all Roman Catholics

are automatically going to Hell or that all Baptists and Methodists

are automatically Heaven-bound. They've come a long way. But, sadly,

the Democratic Party has come a long way, too, and for our family it's

now a given that most of us will vote in a way that would get us kicked

out of the family if our ancestors had anything to say about it.

When I vote for president, or for any other national office, and I

am speaking as a private citizen, not as the pastor of a congregation,

I will not vote for a Republican or a Democrat. I will, however, vote

for the candidate that sees abortion for the vicious, destructive evil

that it is. Instead, I will cast a vote in the hope that the most innocent

and helpless among us might have a chance to live.

[Father David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal

Church, which meets at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Sundays at 4881 E. Highway

34. He may be contacted at 770-252-2428 or [email protected].]

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