New Jersey GOP Assembly WHIP Advocates Throwing Family Value Issues Out of Party

by Michael Illions | November 23, 2008 3:46 pm

It is one thing to be a “moderate” in New Jersey and have debates about the issues and why one side believes one thing and why the other side sees things differently. But to have a sitting Assemblyman like Jon Bramnick make comments about those he doesn’t share the same position on the issues with and call them names is offensive:

The pro-choice Republican believes his party gets into trouble when it tries to use the chambers of government to lecture taxpayers about how to behave in their personal lives. “The minute you preach morality, you’re done,” Bramnick said. “That sold after Monica Lewinsky, but frankly, I’m offended by it.”

Bramnick, who’s flirted with going statewide in recent years and emerged as an early favorite to pursue the 7th District Congressional seat Lance just won before standing down, said regardless of the national party’s strategies, Republicans in New Jersey shouldn’t run on family values.

“My greatest concern is our party will be considered intolerant,” Bramnick said. “I believe you must be careful when you’re a leader that there should be no perception of intolerance. When we try to preach moral values or social values we’re going to be perceived as intolerant. People want solutions to problems that face average people. They do not want to be dictated to about their values by government leaders. There are no perfect families and many, many families are dysfunctional. Therefore, we should not as leaders be perceived as dictating values. Rather, we should be perceived as open-minded.”

We must be serious but not mean-spirited. …We do not want to be deemed as a party that mixes religion and government. If people perceived us as moderate on social issues and good managers, we could win.”

To be a Republican and call those who stand for life, the unborn and traditional family values mean-spirited or intolerant and say you are “offended” by them offends me, Assemblyman.

So much for the big tent theory. Which is really nothing more then letting Conservatives in that tent as long as they keep their mouths shut and opinions to themselves. Assemblyman Bramnick, in his elitist tone, mocks those that stand for these values on the social agenda using phrases as “preach” and “dictate.”

But to suggest that “average people” don’t care about family values is equally concerning to me. Does he believe that “average people” aren’t concerned about marriage, and protecting the unborn and preserving traditional marriage or using their tax dollars to support pro-abortion organizations and the funding of embryonic stem cell research?

I have been disappointed and angered over many things that our GOP elected officials have done and said, but this is definitely at the top and Bramnick has crossed over the line. Bramnick, like so many others in this party locally and nationally, believe that the GOP should be cleansed of social conservatives and take a neutral position on the social issues, leaving candidates to call themselves “fiscal conservatives” while voting for bills and legislation that raise taxes, increase debt and expand Government.

Assemblyman Jon Bramnick is the perfect example of a Republican being a “Democrat-lite”, and is exactly what is wrong with the Republican Party.

This Country’s moral compass is built on the foundation of FAMILY, and to say that family values doesn’t have a place in politics or in the Republican Party and isn’t important to the average person is naive and the thinking that has brought the Party to where we are today.

And if by some stretch of the imagination, Bramnick is correct, the blame lies solely on the shoulders of liberals and moderates for doing everything they could to remove “FAMILY VALUES” out of the public square like it is a dirty word and needs to be hidden in the closet.

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