How Could You Vote for an Adulterer

11/9/16

A number of people have asked me how I could vote for a man who has been married three times and has a vulgar mouth. Maybe this will give some perspective.

My dad was married four times and had God only knows how many affairs. He was profane at times. He had a short fused temper and yelled at my mom until she was in tears, and whipped me with a belt more times than I can remember. I was never particularly close to my dad and I carried a lot of bitterness for many years. In spite of all that I loved him, and I did all I knew how to confirm his salvation before he died.

My dad was not the kind of guy I would hang out with after work. But I've worked with a lot of people like that through the years. There are guys I would not have voted for to be Sunday school teacher, but I would have followed them into battle.
My dad would have fit into that category. I never knew a harder working man in my life. He was full of ideas and the ingenuity to build things out of scrap. He once built his own house from a do-it-yourself kit and a garage from his own design. He helped me build a dune buggy which I could never have done myself. One year he built a houseboat out of second hand materials and took my bothers and me on one of the best vacations of my life to Lake Powell, Utah.

He wasn't around for the everyday problems that kids grow up with and in many ways he was not a good example for a kid to follow. On the other hand he was a gentleman, one of the nicest people you would ever want to know. He was kind and generous. Once when a Highlander boy, an organization like the Boy Scouts, tried to sell him some tickets to some kind of charity circus, he said he wasn't interested but gave him ten dollars anyway for the charity.

He was loyal to his friends and kept his word. He once promised to take me to a baseball game where the players were giving a pre-game clinic at all the positions. He forgot about it and he and his wife were dressed up to go to some dinner party when I called. He immediately canceled his plans, changed, and took me to the game.

My dad was an enigma. There is a spiritual answer of course for the dichotomy in his life, but in spite of the demons that haunted him at home and in his personal life, when called upon he was available, dependable, diligent to meticulous detail, and to many, a decent and valuable friend.

I don't defend Donald Trump's past dalliances. Immorality is the one major sin, if we can classify them that way, that more people, men and women, Christian and non-Christian, including past presidents, have had trouble with than any other. Trump is, as my dad was, a flawed individual, but my dad was reliable and as good as his word in dealing with people. I have no fear that Trump, particularly with the backing of so many evangelical leaders, will not be the same. I've lived with it and I've seen that it is possible. I have voted for Trump.