Late last week, evangelical leader James Dobson upped the ante in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination. In a New York Times editorial, he confirmed that he and other pro-family leaders will vote for a third-party candidate if the Republican nominee is not pro-life. The threat is aimed directly at Rudy Giuliani, who is pro-choice.

These leaders feel that they can’t support a pro-choice candidate without unacceptably compromising principles in which they strongly believe. Period. End of discussion.

Far be it from me to urge anyone to compromise their principles. Yet I can’t help but note that their position may end up doing far more harm than good. Their votes for a third-party candidate are meant to make a stand for life. Ironically, they could instead set the pro-life cause back for many decades.

The reason, of course, is Supreme Court nominations. President Hillary Rodham Clinton will nominate judges who believe that the Constitution is a living document that adapts to modern mores. These judges tend to support Roe v. Wade as just one expression of the living, growing constitutional document that sprang from the “penumbras” of the Bill of Rights.

On the other hand, Giuliani at least claims that he will nominate judges who are strict constructionists. These judges do not support the notion of a constitutional document that evolves as times change. Instead, they know that changes to the Constitution should be made via the formal constitutional amendment process. Any other process allows unelected judges’ subjective preferences and beliefs to creep into constitutional law. It’s hard to imagine such a judge finding a right to abortion in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, although one can imagine such a judge engaging in a reasonable debate about whether stare decisis applies to a several-decade old precedent such as Roe v. Wade.

I am not suggesting that we should engage in a results-oriented approach to Supreme Court nominations. If I thought such an approach to judicial nominations were acceptable, then I would have supported the nomination of Harriet Miers based on the implied promise that she would overturn Roe. I did not support that nomination. There is far more to being a good jurist than the way one intends to vote in one case. (Assuming that it were ethical to have a pre-determined intent to vote a certain way in a case that has not yet been argued!) But for those pro-lifers who believe that Roe should be overturned, they will never achieve their objective by helping to elect a President who will nominate jurists who believe in a living, breathing, adaptable Constitution.

Nor am I suggesting that Christian conservatives should cave now and support Giuliani. Pro-life issues are obviously important to these conservatives, and they should vote accordingly—in the primary. The bigger question is what they should do after the primaries are over if Giuliani is the nominee. They are shooting themselves in the foot if they do not reconsider their willingness to support him at that point.

Unfortunately, some Christian conservatives seem much too ready to rule out candidates early. It’s a perfect candidate or no candidate for them, it would seem. Last spring, Dobson expressed doubt about Fred Thompson. Apparently, he was able to look deep into Thompson’s heart and determine that Thompson is not a Christian. Dobson is also disdainful of Thompson’s refusal to support a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage. Ignored is the fact that Thompson’s position on the issue derives from his deep belief in another constitutional principle dear to conservatives’ hearts: federalism. Many governmental decisions are appropriately made by state officials, not federal ones. Thompson is one of the few to remember and act upon this principle. His perspective on the gay marriage amendment should be viewed as perfectly reasonable—even to those conservatives who disagree with him.

Dobson has also ruled out support for John McCain. It’s admittedly hard to argue with that. McCain doesn’t suffer from only one or two imperfections, but a whole mass of them. I will not vote for him, either, under any circumstances.

For Dobson, that leaves Mitt Romney or a second-tier candidate. But Dobson doesn’t believe that large numbers of conservative Christians will vote for Romney because of his Mormonism.

It sounds like Dobson is resigned to the fact that President Hillary Rodham Clinton will be nominating the next several Supreme Court judges. Maybe he should also resign himself to a world in which new rights can spring, at the whim of a judge, from the penumbras of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

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