Do your principles trump Trump?

I am always amazed at how people respond -- or not -- depending on who is speaking, especially when it involves something we profess is significant to us. Do our passions dissipate when we don't like the person discussing them?

Friday was the 45th Annual March for Life in Washington, DC, and President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to address the pro-life march live, delivering his remarks from the Rose Garden via satellite.

He expressed his commitment to a culture of life and declared the value of every human life. Pro-life Christians would generally stand up and applaud, but when I commented on social media that he would speak at the event and, later, that his speech was powerful, I noticed silence from some of these people. Crickets, as they say. How does that work? This is the same loud silence I have noticed when I've tackled the disaster that is Planned Parenthood. The people who always rail against racism have nothing to say against Planned Parenthood's history and its racist, eugenicist founder, Margaret Sanger, and they say nothing against how its practices are wiping out the black population in mind-boggling numbers as it continues to set up shop in black and minority neighborhoods -- by design. Too many are married to the nation's leading abortion provider because Planned Parenthood is married to the Democratic Party, and many of them are joined in holy matrimony to the same -- in bed with an enemy that engages in behavior they profess to detest.

"But how have we gotten to the point that what otherwise matters to us no longer does because the person championing it never has?" I was a fierce opponent of former President Barack Obama's policies, but I believe also I tried to be fair and to defend him and his wife when warranted. When it comes to Trump, who has shown himself to be the pro-life president he told us on the campaign trail he was, ResistTrumpers say nothing, however. They could not applaud the lives he defended Friday and throughout his presidency -- the innocent lives of the unborn -- because that counteracts with their obsession with despising him.

• "Under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life."
• "That is why we march. That is why we pray. That is why we declare that America's future will be filled with goodness, peace, joy, dignity and life for every child of God."
• "The March for Life is a movement born out of love. You love your families, you love your neighbors, you love our nation, and you love every child, born and unborn, because you believe that every life is sacred, that every child is a precious gift from God. We know that life is the greatest miracle of all."

The quotations above were delivered by President Donald Trump to the March for Life attendees -- to the world, really. Had no one known who had delivered them, or if Trump had not delivered them, folks who couldn't find the strength to acknowledge the power of those words on Friday would have been jumping up and down with applause. After all, that's the message they say they espouse. But Trump did deliver them, and they knew it, so...crickets -- or criticism.

This is yet another aspect of politics I cannot stand. Too often, it is about personalities, rather than principles -- and this is sad.

Some on both sides of the aisle did not believe Trump when he said as a candidate that a personal experience had transformed him from "very pro-choice" to pro-life. But his record, even prior to the March for Life, proves that he meant what he said.

I, for one, am proud of our president for speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves at all. Even if -- when -- I disagree on other issues, I give him props -- and thanks -- on this one because the issue is bigger than a man and certainly bigger than a political party. I refuse to sell my soul or my voice to any group or party platform. I will neither be silent about what my passion dictates I proclaim nor will I resist paying tribute to others who proclaim the same. Principles are much too important -- so important they even trump Trump.

Adrienne Ross is owner of Adrienne Ross Communications and a former Southeast Missourian editorial board member. Contact her at aross@semissourian.com.