Memo To Christians: Be Ready To Abandon Gop

In a confidential memo, Howard Phillips of the U.S. Taxpayers Party is urging conservative Christian leaders to be prepared to abandon the Republican Party if it compromises on the abortion issue and back a solidly anti-abortion candidate on a third-party ticket.

The memo is a sign that even though Republican candidates like Sen. Robert K. Dole, R-Kan., and Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, have recently sounded themes appealing to religious conservatives, some in that constituency fear those candidates would betray them if elected president.

Pro-family conservatives need “a political ‘insurance’ policy,” Phillips writes, because it is “unlikely” that anti-abortion stalwarts Patrick J. Buchanan, Alan Keyes or Robert Dornan will become the Republican nominee. The other Republican candidates all have a “pro-abortion voting record,” he claims.

In the memo last month to James C. Dobson Jr. of Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Phillips asks Dobson’s help in getting the U.S. Taxpayers Party on the ballot in all 50 states. “More than anyone else in America today,” Phillips writes to Dobson, “you have the power to make this happen. If I may presume to say so, I believe you also have the duty.”

Dobson, head of an influential Christian ministry, hosts radio programs carried on more than 2,000 stations and publishes 11 magazines on family issues.