“…when you compare this pledge with the Contract with America…one can see that social conservatives are clearly a more important part of any potential conservative governing coalition than they were in 1994.”

Republicans in the House of Representatives unveiled “A Pledge to America” Sept. 23 that was long on addressing unemployment, taxes, health care and government spending but also pledged to fight taxpayer funding of abortion and to stand up for “traditional marriage.”

The document, what the GOP described as a “new governing agenda,” said Republicans would institute a ban on all federal funding of abortion and enact conscience protections for pro-life, health-care providers if they gained control of the House in the November election.

Though much longer, this year’s “A Pledge to America” is reminiscent of the GOP’s 1994 “Contract With America,” which did not address abortion or homosexuality. House Republicans gained 52 seats in that mid-term election, achieving majority status. This year they are seeking to overcome a 255-178 deficit.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, called the document “a strong statement that can serve as a preamble to what a majority of Americans believe about the role the government should and should not play in the economic lives of families, communities and the nation.”

Land said the blueprint “should not be read as an abandonment of the social conservatives’ moral agenda..”

Yuval Levin, director of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s program on bioethics and American democracy, also pointed to the advance made by social conservatives since 1994.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]

Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.