Gov. Brian Kemp mostly stuck to his campaign script Thursday morning when he delivered a speech at the Family Research Council’s 2022 Pray Vote Stand for Life Summit in Atlanta, which discussed his accomplishments to date but briefly touched on the abortion policy he is promoting would haunt if repeated. chosen.
Founded in 1983, the Family Research Council is a right-wing Christian group campaigning against abortion and LGBTQ rights. In 2010, the Southern Policy Law Center labeled the council a hate group and cited baseless smear campaigns against LGBTQ people.
Democrats were quick to condemn the performance.
“Today, Kemp lends his voice to a designated hate group known for its malicious and extreme anti-LGBTQ advocacy,” said State Senator Kim Jackson, a Democrat from Stone Mountain and the state’s first and only openly LGBTQ senator. “The FRC has equated LGBTQ Americans with pedophiles and said homosexuality embodies a hatred of religion – as an episcopal priest and a member of the LGBTQ community I can tell you first hand how wrong, bigoted and extreme these views are. It should not be too much for LGBTQ Georgians to demand that our governor not ally with hate groups and be complicit in bigotry against us.”
Kemp’s speech to the group made no mention of LGBTQ issues. Instead, he touted his administration’s record: The state reopened quickly despite skepticism after the initial pandemic shutdown, GOP lawmakers passed sweeping ballot legislation without yielding to “woke” businesses, and First Lady Marty Kemp has the state’s crackdown against human trafficking.
Kemp has been relatively short-lived in a feat the crowd seemed to genuinely appreciate: his signing of the 2019 bill, which went into effect this year after the Supreme Court ruled Roe v. Wade had picked up. After that, abortions are illegal in Georgia after fetal heart activity is detected early in pregnancy, usually at about six weeks.
“We have also protected the sanctity of God’s greatest gift, life,” Kemp said. “As parents to three daughters, a family of faith, and a small business owner for over 35 years, Marty and I will continue to work hard every day for hardworking Georgians and future generations because we believe we must protect our many stages of life.”
Kemp quickly moved from the abortion bill to other achievements.
“You know, we passed heartbeat legislation here, but we also did adoption reform,” he said. “We have carried out a nursing reform. I mentioned our efforts against human trafficking. We passed a huge Mental Health Parity Act last year. And we continued to work very hard in 2019 to ensure we protect the lives of our students, our administrators and our teachers in the classroom.”
The governor has announced his education priorities for the 2023 legislative session if he is re-elected. He has said how he intends to spend the state’s $5 billion surplus. But Democrats say he still has important questions to answer about abortion bans and the state’s post-Roe future.
“Kemp has already expressed his belief that abortion should be banned, with no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest,” Atlanta Senator Elena Parent said in a news conference last week. “Again, very far from the majority of Georgians. Disturbingly, he has repeatedly refused to answer crucial questions about how his extreme anti-abortion ban could lead to investigations of women and prosecutions of doctors for seeking and providing abortion treatments. Now that he joins a group of extremists plotting to reverse the rights of millions of Americans, Georgians deserve answers to questions that could affect their health, lives and freedom, like Brian Kemp’s call for a national abortion ban supports the extremist senators he is campaigning with?”
It’s a tricky balancing act for Kemp, who is marketing himself as an armed Christian conservative in a state that persecuted the left in the last election.
A July constitutional poll by the Atlanta Journal found that 42% of Georgians would be more likely to vote for a candidate who wants to protect access to abortion, while just 26% said they would prefer a candidate who wants to restrict access to abortion.
And while many conservatives are praising Kemp for helping legislate abortion restrictions, others have urged him to go further and enact a total ban on the practice.
Polls show Kemp has a small but consistent lead in his re-election race against Democrat Stacey Abrams, with an average advantage of 5.3%, according to Real Clear Politics. But a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday declared the race too close to announce, with Kemp receiving 50% of the vote versus Abrams’ 48%.
Kemp’s office didn’t respond to an emailed question Thursday about whether he would seek new abortion restrictions if re-elected.
“It took us 50 years to get where we are now, we don’t want to blow it up in 50 weeks”
At a panel discussion immediately following Kemp’s comments Thursday, South Carolina State Senator Josh Kimbrell said at the council’s summit that he advises politicians to stay mum on the issue of future restrictions.
“Many of you have to do with your elected officials. Some of you are elected officials. We spent 50 years toppling Roe vs. Wade. That’s great. I understand the impatience,” he said. “I just want to say that from a messaging standpoint it’s taken us 50 years to get to where we are now, we don’t want to blow it up in 50 weeks. And some of the messages are bad. And we need to stop talking about it — we let the media control this narrative.”
Kimbrell said that instead of answering media questions about their future plans, anti-abortion advocates should rephrase the question to portray their opponents as bloodthirsty killers.
He gave the example of two Republican members of the South Carolina State Senate with opposing views on abortion. One wanted it to be legal, he said, and she will cut her caucus funding for the next election cycle.
“I had another guy in our caucus who has a big heart, but he’s basically saying, ‘I want to put moms in jail,'” he said. “Okay, those are two extremes that we don’t have to tolerate, ladies and gentlemen, because if we start jailing mothers, we’re going to lose public debate.”
“That’s my message to everyone,” he added. “Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Let’s stop making them talk about what we’re going to do. Let’s talk about what they want to do, and that’s have these kids killed until the day they’re born.”
The panel’s moderator, Connor Semelsberger, director of federal affairs for the council, said Kimbrell “hit the nail on the head.”
“If you are all here for the same purpose, which is protecting unborn children in the womb, valuing mothers and fathers – every child, as we heard last night, has a mother and father – supporting them and valuing them, and we must be united. And like you said, we must not let perfection be the enemy of good. If we can gain ground, if we can save as many unborn lives as we have today, we have to do that and keep pushing the ball forward. And that’s what we’re trying to do in South Carolina, and that’s what state legislatures across the country are trying to do. So this is a great glimpse into what lies ahead.”