Nearly 40 Evangelical Groups Ask, ‘Who is the REAL Donald Trump?’

Written by The FAMiLY LEADER

Donald Trump remains one of the biggest stories of the year.

He also remains a bit of an enigma – a man whose pro-life, pro-family promises don’t seem to match up with his record or his behavior. And despite multiple invitations by our partners at CitizenLink to clarify the seeming contradictions, Mr. Trump has refused to resolve the very questions Americans need to have answered before they can vote for him in good conscience.

Therefore, The FAMiLY LEADER has joined with CitizenLink, a national alliance of nearly 40 state-based family policy councils representing millions of Evangelicals nationwide, in releasing an open letter to presidential candidate Donald Trump calling on him to answer direct questions on his policy positions.

CitizenLink has invited all the leading conservative candidates to participate in its Presidential Candidate Teleconferences. So far, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and former Gov. Jeb Bush have participated on the calls, as well as former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, prior to suspending their campaigns. Dr. Ben Carson is scheduled for later this month.

But Donald Trump has thus far refused.

“Time is ticking, and we want Mr. Trump to clear up his contradictory record on issues Americans care about,” said Paul Weber, president & CEO of CitizenLink. “We have invited Mr. Trump several times to join our Presidential Candidate Teleconference Series. He has yet to accept, and our constituents are left wondering.”

Bob Vander Plaats, president and CEO of The FAMiLY LEADER, explained, “We have signed on to this open letter to urge Mr. Trump to clarify these lingering questions many Americans need to have answered before they can vote for him in good conscience.”

Some of the questions Americans are demanding Trump answer include:

1. After years of describing yourself as “pro-choice in every respect”—even supporting partial-birth abortion – you now say that you are pro-life. Your explanation for this change of position – that a baby who was nearly aborted ended up being a “superstar” – is confusing, particularly since you acknowledged that if the child had been “a loser,” your pro-abortion position probably wouldn’t have changed. Please explain this utilitarian view of the sanctity of human life. Do you consider life only worth protecting if it meets certain criteria, and, if so, what are those criteria?

2. How do you square your new position on life with your statements in 2015 supporting continued taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion seller?

3. The next president is expected to nominate two to four U.S. Supreme Court justices. You’ve recommended your sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, for the High Court. Yet, as a federal judge, she overturned the New Jersey Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, writing that it “burdened a woman’s constitutional right to obtain an abortion.” How can we trust you to nominate judges who will respect the constitutional limits on judicial power and uphold the sanctity of human life?

4. You claim to support religious freedom, yet a leading gay-activist organization calls you “one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency” – particularly because of your “standout position” when it comes to legislation that forces Christian business owners – and others of faith – to either betray their conscience or lose their business. How do you reconcile these contradictory positions?

5. You have built your campaign on lifting the economic outlook of lower-income Americans, yet you built your fortune in part on gambling, which preys on those very people. How will you make America great when you’ve run businesses associated with increased crime, bankruptcies, broken marriages and suicides?

To see the rest of the questions, Click here to read the full text of the open letter.

The FAMiLY LEADER has not endorsed any candidate in this election cycle, yet as a partner within a national alliance that represents pro-family Americans, we have a responsibility to ask Mr. Trump about his policy positions and his view on the role of the president. We must ensure that pro-family voters are able to hear from Mr. Trump on these issues and make an informed decision when they cast their ballots.

Our hope is that this open letter will bring the clarity on these issues the American voters deserve when choosing the next president.

Originally published at TheFamilyLeader.org.