In Alabama, piety, and pragmatism draw Christians to Trump
Her eyes blazing with determination, Tawnya Parker -- who endured a traumatic abortion as an adolescent -- attempts to clarify why she, therefore, a great many other evangelical Christians in the US's southern Bible Belt see President Donald Trump as their spiritual and ethical champion.
Parker may have problems with Trump's tweeting and crude rhetoric, but she and the president share an opposition to abortion, which could be a deciding factor for most voters in the November 3 election.
The 49-year-old human resources consultant and her husband Brian, a military veteran who works for the Lockheed Martin defense company, worship at the Solid Rock Church in Haleyville, Alabama, every Sunday.
Living in probably the most pro-Trump places, Parker says religion "strongly influences our life" -- and their selection of the president.
"I was forced with an abortion when I was 15. It did a significant amount of psychological and emotional damage to me. I do not believe that abortion on demand is right," she told AFP.
While Trump's public stance against abortion resonates with her, she says "somebody must get him off Twitter."
"Yes, he could figure out how to speak a bit more eloquently. But the values that he represents, represent this county and our values much better than the candidate that is running against him," she said.
Deep in the conservative Christian region known as the Bible Belt, Haleyville is in Winston County, which voted almost 90 percent for Trump in 2016.
Provocative and rude, the thrice-married NY businessman, accused of adultery and sexual abuse, can happen to have little in keeping with Winston locals.
But he has courted evangelicals assiduously in his race against Democrat Joe Biden, and many see Trump as fighting because of their cause, particularly on abortion.
Alabama passed the country's most restrictive abortion law in May 2019.
It really is being challenged in the courts, but Trump's recent nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court could result in nationwide tightening of usage of abortion -- to the delight of
many evangelicals.
Barrett's nomination is "very important, maybe as important as the presidential election," said Jerry Mobley, a Republican Party official in Winston county.
Alongside the principles, an amount of pragmatism is often mixed in with loyalty to Trump.
Republican party member Charity Freeman, in neighboring Cullman county, said the president's private life was of little concern.
"If we voted on presidents on the personal history, we would never have elected some of our presidents," she said.
"We vote on the policies and on their stance for the United States and how they are going to help us as Americans."
William Craig Mann, a journalist of the Cullman Tribune, summed up the contradiction pithily.
"Trump will never be an example of the sort of person you may bring home to your mother. But he's God's man of as soon as," he said.
Cullman differs from many Bible Belt communities in a single aspect -- it is a Catholic enclave in a predominantly Protestant region.
In fact, it is home to the Ave Maria Grotto, a visitor attraction which includes miniature reproductions around 100 religious buildings from all over the world assembled over 50 years by a monk.
"A lot of people say Alabama is the buckle of the Bible Belt," said grotto director Roger Steele standing in the center of types of St. Peter's Square in Rome and the Lourdes shrine in France.
However, the "Deep South" could be changing. "You do not see as much as hardcore conservatism or racism that you may have observed in the 60s and 70s," Steele said.
Sign of this change could possibly be emerging among the youth of Alabama.
Tawnya Parker says her five children are Democratic supporters, while even young Trump voters are staking out their own convictions.
Christian Marbutt, 20, waits in the parking large amount of a Haleyville grill restaurant when driving of his sun-worn Chevrolet
With his cap back-to-front, a thick red
beard, and a crucifix around his neck, he gets the word "family" tattooed on his forearm and can vote for Trump on November 3, but he says he supports abortion rights.
"I believe in pro-choice. It's the woman's body," he said.
"Our generation isn't technically pushing from the religion, but we're not concentrating on it just as much as older generations." -- AFP
