September 26, 2024 10:48 AM UTC

Gabe Evans Will "Check The Box," And That's Why He Can't Be Trusted

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Colorado Sun’s Jesse Paul gives us a lot to unpack today with a long-awaited hard look at CO-08 Republican congressional candidate Gabe Evans’ views on the social issues of marriage equality and abortion rights. Responding to ads slamming with backup Evans’ no-exceptions opposition to abortion as he indicated in several candidate surveys, as well as resurfacing a letter to the editor from 2004 in which Evans made the full standard range of googly-eyed predictions that allowing gays and lesbians to get married would lead to the legitimization of incest and bestiality.

Starting with the latter, Evans doesn’t deny that he wrote this poorly-aged letter to the editor, but assures voters that his dim view of marriage equality at age 17 has moderated in the years since:

Evans, in an interview with The Colorado Sun, said his views have changed over the past 20 years and that he neither wants to ban gay marriage nor invalidate existing same-sex marriages. He said he plans to vote “yes” on a November ballot measure that would strip a prohibition on same-sex marriage from the Colorado Constitution and supports the Respect for Marriage Act passed in 2022, which requires the federal government to recognize same-sex and interracial marriage.

He was marked “excused” from a House floor vote when the legislature referred the same-sex marriage amendment to the ballot earlier this year and did not vote on the authorizing legislation.

Setting aside whether or not Evans’ conversion on marriage equality is legitimate, we’re going to go out on a limb and suggest that Evans would not have voiced support for Amendment J, the constitutional amendment striking the state’s prohibition of same-sex marriage, before the June 25th GOP primary. Being excused from the vote to refer that measure to voters during the session worked out…conveniently for Evans, and jumping on the Amendment J bandwagon for the general election has little political downside as long as voters buy it. There’s a pastor in Greeley who might not be thrilled.

On the question of abortion rights, however, Evans stumbled badly under questioning:

The House Majority PAC ad cites a candidate survey Evans filled out as part of his 2022 statehouse campaign. In that survey, which has since been removed from the internet, Evans checked a box saying he supports “prohibiting abortion except when necessary to save the mother’s life.” There was no mention in the survey of whether abortion should be banned in cases of rape or incest, and the survey only allowed respondents to check “support,” “oppose” or “no response” to the question.

Evans says he thinks abortions should be allowed in cases of rape and incest, and when a mother’s life is at risk.

“That was a check-the-box survey with one pro-life option and one pro-choice option,” he told The Sun. “I’m pro-life, so I checked the pro-life option knowing that a check-the-box survey is never going to fully encompass the nuances and the complexities of this conversation.” [Pols emphasis]

Here’s the problem: Evans just admitted that it doesn’t matter what his “nuances” are on the issue of abortion rights. In Congress, when facing a vote on legislation to ban abortion, Evans will “check the pro-life option” as he did in this candidate survey, rather than let his “nuances” get in the way. Rambling at length about the “complexities” of various medical scenarios sidesteps the fact that Evans is fully opposed to the kind of “normal” abortion most often carried out, which is the right most fundamentally in question.

Evans has consistently said he would not support a federal abortion ban, but on the state level, he has not said when in a pregnancy he thinks abortion should be outlawed. [Pols emphasis] He told The Sun he hasn’t seen and doesn’t know of a policy that he feels adequately protects life but also provides flexibility in situations where there is a major complication in a pregnancy.

This is where the inherent contradiction of Evans’ position on abortion is exposed. It’s clear that Evans supports greater restrictions on abortion than exist today, especially on the so-called “elective” abortions that make up the overwhelming majority, and that moral conviction either transcends state lines or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, it’s a political contrivance, not a moral conviction. It’s a conundrum very similar to that faced by Cory Gardner during his U.S. Senate run in 2014, in which Gardner escaped the hard questions about his views on abortion by denying the existence of a “federal personhood bill” Gardner in fact co-sponsored, and then convincing the local media that Democrats’ fixation on the issue of abortion was a “tedious refrain.”

In 2024, that strategy isn’t going to work for Gabe Evans. All voters need to know is that when confronted with an abortion ban, Evans will “check the box.”