Hispanics tout efforts to combat 'lack of faith in churches,' get Latinos to 'vote biblical values'
Editors' note: This is part 7 of The Christian Post's year-long articles series "Politics in the Pews: Evangelical Christian engagement in elections from the Moral Majority to today." In this series, we will look at issues pertaining to election integrity and new ways of getting out the vote, including churches participating in ballot collection. We'll also look at issues Evangelicals say matter most to them ahead of the presidential election and the political engagement of diverse groups, politically and ethnically. Read other articles in the series by clicking here.
Conservative Hispanic Christian activists warn that the “lack of faith in churches” has led to greater Hispanic support for Democrats and progressives even though their beliefs align with “biblical values” embraced by conservatives and Republicans.
The Christian conservative political advocacy group Faith & Freedom Coalition hosted its Road to Majority conference in Washington, D.C., last week. The second full day of programming on Saturday featured a panel titled “Hispanic Voices for Faith and Freedom," where Hispanic activists discussed efforts to advance the conservative cause within the Hispanic community.
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Moderated by Faith & Freedom Coalition National Hispanic Director Nilsa Alvarez, the panel included activists based in both the United States and Latin America. They spoke about their efforts to intertwine faith and politics as they push back against the infiltration of progressive ideology in education and culture.
Adianis Morales, the Florida and Puerto Rico Hispanic director for the Faith & Freedom Coalition, who has a background as a pastor, cited the “lack of faith in churches” where “we’re not voting our biblical values” as the reason why she joined former President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2020 and became involved in political activism.
"It was pertinent to have a pastor that will defend biblical values and will go to churches and spread the news so Christians will vote their biblical values," Morales said.
Morales also elaborated on her activism against what Alvarez described as “radical sex education” in her school district.
“We started getting together, we started doing protests, we had children protesting what they were doing, and hundreds of parents were coming to [the] school board. At every single meeting, I was there as a pastor praying before we started and holding the school board accountable for what they were doing,” she recalled.
Morales detailed how the Faith & Freedom Coalition launched a chapter of the organization in Puerto Rico in January.
“Until Puerto Ricans understand that we are being used by the Democrat Party, that just because we come from Democratic countries doesn’t mean that we’re Democrats here,” she said.
“We are conservatives,” Morales insisted. “We are people that believe in God. We believe in family; our values are very important, our families are the best things. So until we get the Puerto Ricans to come here and register correctly and they understand that they are not Democrats, that they are Republicans, conservatives, that’s the only way that we’re going to change the nation.”
Dorcas Hernandez, who founded an organization in Peru that translates to “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” in English, described what motivated her to launch the advocacy group.
“At the moment, the government of Peru was a progressive government coming after our [children],” she said. “They were implementing laws in the justice system with gender ideology and sexual orientation in the education system.”
“We, the citizens, took a stand,” she asserted. “We gathered the church, the citizens, the faith leaders, the mamas and papas and grandparents to make a commitment before God to take a stand for life, children and freedom. From that moment on, the movement [grew] and [grew] by the millions. We took the nation by storm, peacefully gathering 1.5 million people in the public square to tell the government, ‘Enough is enough. You’re not coming after my children; you’re not coming after our generation.’”
“We were able to oust the prime minister, to oust the secretary of education,” Hernandez added. “We have to be obedient, and we have to take a stand in faith because God is with us.”
Hernandez said that over 30 nations around Latin America have chapters of the "Don't Mess With Our Kids" movement, including Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador and Paraguay.”
“We just launched it here in the United States a year ago,” she said. “We’re getting ready to get all our 50 states, 51 locations, and to take back America, to protect our children ... and more important, to take … [the] United States back to God.”
While conservative-leaning faith-based advocacy groups have made convincing the Hispanic community to vote for Republicans a top priority ahead of the November election, exit polling shows the majority of Hispanics support Democrats at the national level.
In the 2020 presidential election, exit polling showed that 65% of Latinos backed Democrat Joe Biden, while 32% voted for Republican Donald Trump. Two years later, in the 2022 midterm elections, exit polling showed 60% of Latinos backed Democrats, while 39% voted for Republicans.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
