Candidate bases bid on God

Supporters of Constitution Party presidential nominee Michael Peroutka acknowledge it will take a miracle for him to win the White House.

But for a party that believes in recognizing God as the source of American government, that’s not necessarily a criticism.

Peroutka, a Maryland lawyer nominated last week at the Constitution Party’s national convention, was in Spokane on Tuesday seeking support for his bid to be added to the Washington state ballot. As a minor party candidate, supporters must gather signatures on petitions to win him a space on the November ballot.

“We must acknowledge God, defend the family and restore the constitutional Republic,” he told a crowd of about 500 who signed petitions in the sweltering Shadle Park High School auditorium. “The acknowledgement of God is not an exercise of religion, it’s a founding principle of government.”

Peroutka said he entered the race because of a deep concern for “the sort of country we’d become.” He sees the United States as a country that sends its wives and mothers, as well as “sodomites,” to fight undeclared and unconstitutional foreign wars.

He sees it as a country that destroys families by suggesting that marriage can be something other than a union of a man and a woman; by denigrating fathers in movies and television shows as drunkards and buffoons; and by allowing the “national disgrace” of abortion.

He sees it as a country with government officials pushing a “one-world government agenda, rushing to give away America’s sovereignty to foreign bureaucrats.”

The federal government has no authority to provide universal health care, to protect the environment, to require people to buckle their seat belts, or to spread democracy to other countries, he said. “Policeman of the world is nowhere in Article II (of the Constitution).”

It has no authority for the No Child Left Behind Act or other education programs, he added. “The state has no children.”

If elected, Peroutka vowed to acknowledge the divine source of liberty and require his judges to do the same.

“No person who fails to honor God will be appointed to the federal judiciary,” he said.

He’d also defend the right for people to acknowledge God in public buildings – a particularly appropriate position considering the person with whom he shared the stage.

For, although he’s a presidential candidate, Peroutka was really the opening act for a second, more famous speaker, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office for refusing a federal judge’s order to remove a granite monument to the Ten Commandments from the courthouse.

Like Peroutka, Moore insisted that the nation must acknowledge that God is the source of its freedom.

Like Peroutka, his comments were met with applause, cheers, and an occasional “Amen.”

“If God gives you rights, no man can take them from you,” Moore said. “If government gives you rights, government can take them from you.”

Peroutka and Moore were clear that they meant the Christian God of the Bible – King James Version – not some abstract deity. But they drew the distinction between religion, which Moore described as an institution, and the belief in God.

“Only one can change America – it’s God,” Moore said.

“We have to turn from our wicked ways. We’re fighting a war, not just in Iraq, but right here.”