Christians Praise GOP Platform's Defense of Biblical Values

Christian conservatives are cheering for the newly adopted Republican Party platform.

It includes language that reaffirms the party's opposition to gay marriage and efforts to redefine bathroom access for transgender people.

The platform also praises the benefits of biblical parenting, saying: "Children raised in a traditional two-parent household tend to be physically and emotionally healthier, less likely to use drugs and alcohol, engage in crime or become pregnant outside of marriage."

The party's platform represents the GOP's formal policy positions for the next four years, but is not binding.

Defending traditional values is becoming an important theme at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

In the convention's invocation, Rabbi Ari Wolf warned, "Our family values, our moral principles and even our very democracy is threatened."

And South Carolina Pastor Mark Burns, one of Donald Trump's most ardent African-American, supporters declared that Republicans "are the conservative party under God."

Pastor Burns led Republican convention delegates in a prayer for Trump's success. Burns says the GOP should unite behind him because he's a man who "believes in the name of Jesus Christ."
        
And the evening program featured prayers by Catholic Monsignor Kieran Harrington and evangelical pastor Paula White.
    
Harrington prayed, "May we defend life when most vulnerable in the womb or in old age, and let us not forget our obligations to the poor and the sick, the prisoner and the alien in our midst."