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Whitney aims to oust House Speaker Busch

Pastor David Whitney has been testifying for eight years in Annapolis on pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family issues and getting nowhere.

This year he decided to “get off the couch” and run for office himself – specifically, for the House of Delegates, 30th District.

“I realized that the pro-life agenda in Annapolis is not being pursued,” he told Defend Life in a September 20 interview.

“I have two goals,” he said:  “to achieve a seat in the House of Delegates, and to remove Michael Busch from office.”

Busch, a Democrat, is one of District 30’s three delegates and Speaker of the House.  He has a 100 percent approval rating from Planned Parenthood of Maryland.

During the last General Assembly session, in an unprecedented move, Busch prevented a full vote by the House on Maryland’s Marriage Protection Act by summarily recessing the House.  The bill was later killed in the Judiciary Committee.

Pro-life and pro-marriage issues are foremost in Pastor Whitney’s decision to run for office.

“Our rights come from God, not from government,” he explained.  “The first right is the right to life; all other rights depend on that.  Government’s first job is to defend the life of every citizen, including the unborn.”

When governments like the State of Maryland pay for abortions, “we have an illegitimate function of government,” he asserted:  “government is destroying human life.”

Whitney has testified for four years in favor of an amendment to the Maryland Constitution to protect marriage, but the General Assembly has failed to act.

“If Maryland’s marriage law is overturned by the courts, and I suspect it will be, we are left vulnerable; there is no regulation of same-sex marriage.  That’s why the homosexual lobby has targeted Maryland,” he said.

Pastor Whitney is running on the Constitutional Party ticket.

“Part of the reason I left the Republican Party is because our governor fired Robert J. Smith because he said that homosexuals should not receive any special treatment from the government,” he said.

Smith was fired last summer from the Metro Transit Authority Board by Governor Ehrlich, a Republican, after his remarks during a panel discussion on a cable show.

“Two weeks later, Ehrlich appointed an activist homosexual as a judge in Baltimore,” said Whitney.  “That, for me, was the final straw.  It  looks to me like he is pandering to the homosexual lobby.”

Running as a third-party candidate gives him the flexibility to appeal to voters with no party affiliation, he said.

“They think it’s time to get an independent candidate elected.  I’m also getting good support from pro-life Republicans and Republicans concerned about the threats to marriage, as well as Democrats who are conservative on moral issues, if not on fiscal issues.

“They can’t believe what Busch did to the marriage amendment when I tell them about it – they say, ‘You’re kidding!’”

Pastor Whitney noted that of the three Republican District 30 candidates for House of Delegates, only two are pro-life.  The third, Dr. Ron Elfenbein, has said that he doesn’t like abortion but, as a doctor, he believes abortion should be available.

“By voting for me, voters are helping defeat Michael Busch and a less than 100 percent pro-life Republican for House of Delegates,” he said.

Whitney, the pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Pasadena, has pastored churches in New Jersey, Colorado, Florida and Maryland for the past 24 years.

A graduate from Rutgers University as a Henry Rutgers Honors Scholar with Honors in History, he received his Master’s Degree from Denver Seminary.

For several years, Whitney has been teaching the Christian heritage and history of the United States with the Institute on the Constitution.

He is editor of IOTC’s Liberty Forum Magazine and hosts a radio show on Dr. Sam Montieth’s Radio Liberty.

Pastor Whitney has participated in Defend Life’s Face the Truth Tours, and was a captain in this past summer’s tour.

He lives in Cape St. Claire with his wife Cherelyn and their daughters, Susanne, 5, and Lauren, 2.