James Talarico, the Democrat nominee hoping to succeed John Cornyn of Texas in the U.S. Senate, demonstrated at the CNN Jubliee Town Hall on Wednesday that he doesn't require the presence of his Republican opponent to badly lose a debate.
Among the attendees afforded an opportunity during the town hall to raise and discuss sensitive matters with the Senate candidate was Jodi Hunt, an eighth-generation Texas woman and orthodox Catholic who has taught in the University of Dallas' theology department since 2018 and serves as the executive director of the university's Neuhoff Institute for Ministry and Evangelization.
'That's OK. We're both Christians.'
Hunt noted at the outset that like many other Catholics, she is a "one-issue voter. Abortion is a large part of that, and dignity of the human person and natural law."
Fully 67% of Texans identify as Christians, 22% as Catholic, according to 2024 data from the Pew Research Center.
"We believe that at the moment of conception, there is a human life to protect," continued the Texas Christian. "So we struggle with the idea that it's the woman's right to choose."
Hunt added that Democrats' unwillingness to protect "the most innocent among us" not only makes it hard to vote for them but saps prospective voters' trust in their ability to "provide policies to protect the rest of Texans and to promote dignity and human life."
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Talarico — a part-time Presbyterian seminarian who has attempted to use Scripture to justify abortion and previously preached at a leftist church that regards abortion as a "blessing" — said that "we may come to different moral and ethical conclusions when it comes to the question of 'should abortion be legal or not?' It sounds like you and I do come to a different conclusion. That's OK. We're both Christians."
Dusting off a claim he previously used without much pushback, Talarico asserted that "the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion."
The Catholic theologian proved immune to Talarico's gaslighting.
"The Bible is not silent on abortion," said Hunt. "There is the Ten Commandments. 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
Hunt's statement prompted thunderous applause from the audience.
"If I believed that abortion was murder, that it violated the Ten Commandments, then I wouldn't support it," said Talarico, who has protested the public display of the Ten Commandments.
After stating that he does not regard killing unborn human beings as murder, in a state where killing a pregnant woman counts as a double homicide, Talarico condemned Texas' Human Life Protection Act, claiming that "if we are authentically pro-life, I think we should be disturbed by the outcomes of this extreme abortion ban."
Hunt was joined in refuting Talarico's claim that "the Bible is silent on abortion" by others online, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which wrote, "Nope," and Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins, who wrote, "No, the Bible is not silent on killing children made in His image."
Chris Gustafson, communications director for the Senate Leadership Fund, said in a statement obtained by Blaze News, "Talarico proved once again that he’s simply too liberal and too dangerous for Texas."
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