Sometimes it feels like the loudest voices on the Right want you to believe that to call yourself a conservative, you must check every single box: anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and ready to legislate personal choices based on their interpretation of the Bible. But that’s not me. And I know I’m not alone.
Yes — I lean conservative. I believe in smaller government, local control, strong families, free enterprise, and individual responsibility. I reject victimhood culture and identity politics that divide us by race and group instead of respecting us as individuals. But I’ve always known that some of my ideas lean more independent, maybe even libertarian at times.
I’m pro-choice because I don’t believe the government should control the most private, moral decisions anyone can make. If you want limited government, it can’t just be limited when it suits you. You can’t say “get out of my wallet” but “get into my bedroom.”
I also don’t care who you marry. If two consenting adults love each other and want to build a life together, that’s their business. The Constitution promises equal protection for all, not just the people your pastor might approve of.
And when it comes to religion, I respect people of faith. I grew up with it. But I don’t want a party that tries to become a church. Faith should shape personal life, not be forced by the state onto everyone else. When radical religion dictates every plank of the party platform, that’s not conservatism — that’s moral authoritarianism.
Our founders understood this tension. John Adams, deeply devout, saw morality as inseparable from faith (Adams, 1811). Thomas Jefferson, the skeptic, rewrote the Gospels to create his own Bible, driven by reason as much as belief (Jefferson, 1804/2004). They didn’t agree on doctrine but still built a system that protects freedom of conscience for everyone (Holmes, 2006).
I believe there has to be room for conservatives like me. People who want local control, free markets, secure borders, and strong communities — but don’t want the government telling people what to do in their most private choices. Some would say that sounds independent or libertarian. Maybe it does. But at the end of the day, I know how our system works: we have two viable parties. If you want your vote to count and your voice to shape the future, you have to pick a side and work within it.
So, I pick the side that still fights for individual liberty, free speech, law and order, and the freedom to live without endless government overreach. But I will not surrender my voice to the loudest moral scolds who think freedom stops where their religion starts.
If that makes me a “bad conservative,” so be it. I’d rather be an honest one. I’ll keep voting, keep speaking up, and keep working to make sure the party I choose remembers that liberty is not something you pick and choose — it’s something you stand for, all the way.
References
Adams, J. (1811). Letter to Benjamin Rush, December 21, 1811. In C. F. Adams (Ed.), The works of John Adams, Second President of the United States (Vol. 9). Little, Brown.
Holmes, D. L. (2006). The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. Oxford University Press.
Jefferson, T. (2004). The Jefferson Bible: The Life a
