Mark Ronchetti, the Republican running to become governor of New Mexico, appears to be telling powerful Christian pastor Steve Smotherman that he wants to end abortion entirely within the state… while pretending to be less extreme on the matter whenever he speaks to a different audience. We know this because the pastor keeps telling his Legacy Church congregation that Ronchetti’s goal is to prohibit the procedure entirely no matter what else he says publicly.
This has been an ongoing bit of controversy for months now because at least one of the two Christian sides is lying.
Ronchetti began shifting his positions after winning the GOP primary. In a campaign ad, he said incumbent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was an abortion extremist (because she supports women controlling their own bodies) and that he was the reasonable one because he only wanted to ban the procedure after 15 weeks, with “exceptions for rape, incest, and [the] life of [the] mother.”
But it didn’t take long for Smotherman to chime in. He told his congregation in July that they shouldn’t worry about Ronchetti’s stated position and that the candidate had his endorsement. After dismissing the church/state separation crowd and claiming the Johnson Amendment proponents who say he’s violating his 501(3) status are “so stupid you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Smotherman explained what his audience didn’t know: ...