Vero Beach minister Dale Glading has chosen to emphasize his religious values as he runs for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives in a time of increasing secularization.
So two questions needed to be asked.
No. 1: Should an ordained minister, especially one who urges members of his congregation to move beyond their spiritual comfort zones and be bolder in their faith, run for public office?
No. 2: Can an ordained minister, particularly one who so staunchly embraces the pro-life cause that he describes abortion as “genocide,” get elected in Indian River County?
Glading, one of four Republican candidates seeking to replace Debbie Mayfield as District 54 state representative, was more than ready to tackle both questions.
As we sat in a local bistro last week to discuss his “Conservative to the Core” campaign, Glading made a case for his faith-based candidacy – and his belief that he can win.
“Did you know that 29 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were either ministers or attended seminary?” Glading said. “Did you know Harvard, Yale, Brown and Princeton all started with seminaries, and that the Bible was the main textbook?”
He went on to assert that “many of our Founding Fathers were evangelical Christians.”
Glading, who in 1987 created an athletic prison ministry that has become the largest of its kind in the U.S. and also runs other faith-based programs, clearly sees no conflicts arising a minister’s pursuit of political office.
But some of Glading’s supporters have advised him to tone down the faith aspect of his campaign.
“I’ve had a number of people in my corner who’ve said, ‘Dale, we’re not going to tell you to not talk about your faith, but don’t lead with it. Don’t you be the one who brings it up,'” he said. “But I can’t do that. This is who I am.”
Besides, Glading, who moved to Vero Beach from New Jersey five years ago, doesn’t see his ministry, his faith or his Christian values as obstacles his campaign must to overcome.
To the contrary, Glading believes his appeal to the local evangelical and pro-life voters – as well as his ministry’s outreach to the Gifford community through its predominantly black churches – creates a coalition that gives him a real chance in the Aug. 30 primary.
“Obviously, I don’t make my decisions based on poll numbers,” said Glading, who is running against Vero Beach attorney Erin Grall, island realtor Lange Sykes and local gastroenterologist Gregory Mackay.
“But poll numbers will tell you that one-third of the voters in a Republican primary are evangelical Christians, and I’m going to get the evangelical vote,” he added. “I’m going to get 8,000 to 10,000 votes just from the evangelical community alone, and I’m going to win Gifford. I minister there. I work with the ministers there. So is there a path to victory? Absolutely, there is.”
Glading sees no problem with wearing his faith on his sleeve and is convinced that being “passionately pro-life,” as he described himself, won’t hurt his campaign.
“The life issue is, to me, the No. 1 issue,” Glading said. “It’s slavery in 1860. It’s women’s suffrage in 1910. It’s civil rights in 1960. It is THE issue of our time.
If elected, Glading said, the first piece of legislation he will introduce is the “Human Heartbeat Act,” which, if passed, would greatly curtail abortions in the state.
Glading doesn’t believe the Legislature has the political will to make abortions illegal, but he thinks his proposal, which would ban the procedure 18 days after conception, could gain traction.
When told that many would consider his position on abortion to be extreme, he replied, “So be it.”
Glading says that since founding the New Jersey-based Saints Prison Ministry nearly 30 years ago, he has ministered to nearly 500,000 inmates in more than 400 prisons in 33 states and Canada.
After moving to Florida in 2011, he founded Risk Takers For Christ, a non-profit, evangelical-in-nature, Baptist-in-doctrine ministry that encourages bolder shows of faith, provides guidance for at-risk youth and strives to achieve racial reconciliation.
“I’ve never had an actual church,” said Glading, a self-described “Jersey boy” who graduated from Temple University with a sports management degree he hoped would eventually take him to the general manager’s job with the New York Yankees. “My church has always been behind bars or out in the community.”
As for politics, this is Glading’s third campaign. He ran for Congress twice in New Jersey, where he won Republican primaries in 2008 and 2010, only to lose in the general election in a Democrat-dominated district.
“People see me as a minister, but I’ve also been, in some ways, a small-business owner, too. God owns my business, but I’ve created two different non-profit organizations that, all together, employed 15 people in six different states with a combined budget of nearly $1 million.
“So I’ve created jobs,” he added.
Two of his political opponents, however, have raised significantly more than the $35,000 his campaign has received, with Sykes bringing in more than $175,000 and Grall’s haul in excess of $150,000 at the end of the last reporting period.
That’s a tangible advantage, Glading concedes, but he isn’t sure how much it will help.
“They’re going to spend $300,000 on a race for a job that pays $29,000 a year,” Glading said, adding that most of the money his campaign has received has come in donations of $50 or less. “The thing is, you can only spend so much in a local race.
“We’re not in Orlando,” he added. “We’re not in Miami or West Palm Beach. TV isn’t going to win it for you. I’m knocking on more doors than any other candidate.”
Still, Glading acknowledged that he’s an underdog, even a longshot to win.
“Do I think I can win this race? Yes,” Glading said. “Do I think I’m going to win this race? I’ve got a fighting chance. I think I have a stronger base that will come out and vote for me.
“I’m the blue-collar, faith-based, underdog candidate.”
