Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emphasized the critical role faith in God plays in leadership as he detailed how he’ll advance the cause of religious liberty if he becomes the 47th president of the United States. DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, recently addressed the crowd at the Family Research Council’s Pray, Vote, Stand Summit, where he discussed his faith in God and detailed how he’ll protect religious liberty if elected president.
He said, “I don’t know how you could be a leader without having faith in God. When you stand up for what’s right in this day and age, that is not going to be cost-free. You are going to face blowback, you’re going to face attacks, you’re going to face smears. And it’s the faith in God that gives you the strength to stand firm against the lies, against the deceit, against the opposition.”
DeSantis credited his faith in God with giving him “the foundation to know that all the insults, all the nonsense they throw at you ultimately doesn’t matter because you are aiming higher.” After sharing concerns about the current state of affairs in the U.S., DeSantis complained that “we do have a spiritual decline in this country.” He cited the practice of “forcibly closing churches and denying people their right to worship as they see fit” during the COVID-19 lockdowns as one example. He recalled, “The liquor stores were open, the strip clubs were open, but yet they shut the door on the people of faith.”
He declared, “I believe that reviving the spirit of America is essential to helping reverse America’s decline. And this revival is going to begin in our religious institutions, our places of work, each of our households, all the institutions that make up the bedrock of society.” DeSantis warned of “threats to religious liberty the likes we have not seen throughout most of American history” and highlighted the need for “people to be able to live their faith in all aspects of their life” as “faith has been treated as secondary to secular concerns in culture.”
He added, “Attempts have been made to wipe our Judeo-Christian religious symbols from our national heritage and national culture. The Left, you know, they talk about saying you can’t be involved in religious practice if you’re in government because it would represent [an] ‘establishment of religion.’” DeSantis refuted this argument, saying, “First of all, that’s not true. But second of all, they’re the ones who want to establish a religion. They just don’t want to establish traditional religions. They want political leftism to be the established religion of this country.”
DeSantis repeatedly discussed his record as Florida governor in his remarks and concluded his speech by describing his state as “the place where woke goes to die.” He told the audience, “As president, we are going to leave the woke mind virus in the dustbin of history, where it belongs, once and for all.”