John Raymond

The sanctity of life begins at conception and all unborn children should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, abortion, as commonly defined, should never be allowed. In the extremely rare event that a doctor is trying to save the life of a mother and her unborn child, the doctor should make the best medical decision at that time using the best methods to save both lives. The medical choice between the life of a mother and her unborn child is extremely rare. In the traumatic situations of rape and incest, everything must be done to assist the mother through this terrible ordeal. However, the unborn child is completely innocent and should not lose their life as payment for the crime of the father.

Strongly Agree

Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with planning parenthood or women's healthcare. It is a front for abortion factories and should never be funded with tax-payer dollars.

Strongly Disagree

Louisiana is losing our best and brightest who leave for better opportunities in other states. We need to make Louisiana attractive for businesses to begin and grow here. Part of this is to revamp our outdated tax structure. Other states are phasing out the state income tax or have eliminated it altogether. Louisiana can do the same. In addition, businesses are saddled with excessive regulations including various taxes that cripple their ability to expand and keep our economy strong. Finally, property taxes are outrageous and are often unfairly high for the working class and small business owners.

As a fiscally conservative Republican, as well as a principled Christian, I believe that it is not the job of the government to provide every need for those who refuse to work and contribute to our economy. We need to reevaluate all of our spending from top to bottom including dedicated funds. Transparency and accountability are essential and tough choices have to be made. Our spending is out of control in many areas, and it begins with a flawed philosophy. We cannot tax our way into prosperity, and we cannot create self-sufficient people by rewarding them for not working or not trying.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Disagree

As I testified before the legislature, we live in a free enterprise society. Business owners have a dream for their future and a vision for their business. Their business belongs to them, and they will either be rewarded or punished by the amount of customers they serve. At the end of the day, the business owner must have the right to choose the direction of their business and their brand. Business owners are people with personal beliefs and convictions and should be allowed to honor them.

As I testified before the legislature (view 3-minute video on my website www.johnraymond.com), churches should always be considered essential. Here is my testimony to the Louisiana Legislature on Senate Bill 63 by Senator Beth Mizell: This issue rises above party lines and directly addresses a critical freedom for all residents of Louisiana. We all experienced an unprecedented health crisis when COVID-19 ravaged every part of our nation. It crippled our economy, created widespread panic, altered business models, shifted industries, and forever changed the way our nation deals with such catastrophic situations. My intent is not to cast dispersion on any political party or on any individuals. Decisions were difficult to make under the most extreme circumstances. Yet, in the effort to keep America safe, I believe some of our Constitutional protections were violated. The freedom to peaceably assemble, and the freedom of religious expression were casualties of war during our battle with COVID-19. In the struggle to provide basic services and maintain essential businesses, we pushed our religious freedoms aside. But our Constitutional Rights should always receive the highest consideration. While some may consider our freedom of religious expression and our right to worship with our spiritual family an optional privilege, I urge you to recognize that it is an absolute right and must never again be compromised in times of crisis. When hurricanes and floods ravage our state, it is the faith community that arrives in droves with provisions and volunteers. When those in our communities suffer disasters of all kinds, you see the churches open their doors and provide the love and support that is so desperately needed. Churches should always be considered “essential” in our society, especially in times of confusion and chaos. Our faith is where we find the calm in the storm. Our faith is where we find the strength to persevere. And our families of faith are where we encourage one another and provide the type of personal and spiritual support that no government or medical facility can offer. I commend Senator Pro-Tem Beth Mizell for this vital clarification to ensure that our houses of worship are always treated with the utmost importance, and that these Constitutional freedoms will always be protected and prioritized – even when the world seems to be falling apart. It is in those times when our faith is even more critical, and our faith communities are even more essential. Please vote Yes on Senate Bill 63 and ensure that even in the most perilous of times, America will always be One Nation Under God. Thank you.

Simple answer is B. This is an extremely complex issue and has become so interwoven in our society that it will be difficult to unscramble this egg. However, people are suffering due to a very unfair healthcare system. Big Pharma companies need to be reigned in and health insurance companies need to be transformed into caring about the patient's health.

The Bible teaches that a parent's most important responsibility is to raise and protect their children. Our children are NOT the government's children. I am a strong believer in Parent's Rights over the health and education of their children. Governments should educate rather than indoctrinate. Political agendas often cross the line of government overreach.

Strongly Disagree

Strongly Agree

Build the wall! Proper immigration is a cherished value in our country. Unless you are 100% pure American Indian, you are an immigrant. However, this is not the issue at our Mexican border. We have a flood of illegal aliens (not immigrants) pouring into our country that wreak havoc on our communities and welfare programs. This must be stopped, or it will cripple our nation completely and usher in socialism, which is the goal of the liberal democrats.

We have a system in place for legal and responsible immigration. We just need to follow our own laws.

Strongly Agree

Public schools have become indoctrination camps for the liberal left. Christian parents should not be forced to subject their children to this type of political indoctrination and immoral grooming.

Strongly Agree

President John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." President James Madison said, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government...not in the Constitution... but upon the capacity of each and every one of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments." President Andrew Jackson said, "The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests."

Strongly Disagree

As I testified before the legislature (see 3-minute video at www.johnraymond.com), Business owners have to be true to their market and should have full freedom to decide who represents their company and brand. This is far worse than a slippery slope. It is an all-out mudslide into the degradation of the moral fabric of our society as well as the unjustifiable stripping of the rights of business owners to monitor and manage their greatest financial asset and determine their business strategy.

Strongly Agree

Those with an anti-God agenda often lay the foundation for their attacks by redefining our terms. My turning the sacred union of biblical marriage into a legal contract between two people of the same gender, they have undermined the very nature of God's building block for a strong and moral society.

Strongly Disagree

Critical Race Theory is an extremely divisive philosophy that is designed to increase racial tension and disunity. This must be banned from public education.

I believe in God's word from Genesis through Revelation. Our nation was founded on the truth and morality of the Bible, and we will only last as long as we uphold His principles. Ronald Reagan said, "America needs God more than God needs America. And if we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

Strongly Disagree

I don't know whether to laugh or spit at such a notion that we can allow any warm body to vote. In such an advanced technological age, it is ridiculous to allow someone to vote who cannot even produce the most basic form of photo ID. Is such a person truly qualified to make decisions on who should be our elected officials or which policies to make into law?

We don't live in a democracy. We live in a Representative Republic. However, the following quote is very applicable. Around the time our nation was founded, Alexander Fraser Tytler recognized the danger of irresponsible voting practices when he said, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves benefits from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.” Many historians and economists now believe the majority of Americans are at least halfway through this cycle. We need to make sure that our voting practices ensure that those who are making the decisions for our nation are qualified contributors to our society and that our elections are secure.

Racism is wrong. So is reverse racism. Very often, minorities are more racist than non-minorities. Liberals love to instigate racism as a tool for divisiveness. Critical Race Theory is one such tool that is being aggressively pushed in public schools. Racism can only be a threat to domestic security to the extent that we continue to empower it through the news media and sensationalized political agendas. Think of the eventual kingdom of God. Will there be any racism there? No, only peace and harmony. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is among you." We need to look past the color of someone's skin and see them as God sees them. The Bible says, "Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart."

My answer is A. Certainly there needs to be laws and regulations in business and industry. Without them, we would have horrible working conditions, massive work injuries, and oppressive child labor. But that's not what we're talking about here. Entrepreneurs and business owners are creative and growth oriented by nature. They have a dream and vision and will risk the farm to make it come true. Then the government steps in to control them at every turn. Ronald Reagan put it best when he said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"

Strongly Agree

The technology exists to mitigate the negative aspects of hydraulic fracking. The benefits to our economy and environment far outweigh the negative.

In America, "We, the people" run the country in the form of a Representative Republic. We have established a government to be accountable to us, not the other way around. The general purpose of the government as clarified in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution is this, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." In unpacking that concept, we recognize that the government can do things that private citizens cannot do alone, such as form a military for our protection, make and enforce laws that protect our quality of life, and provide a political system where the people can be more effective as a society. However, it is not the purpose of the government control every aspect of the lives of our citizens or to tax us into poverty in a vain attempt to provide for those who will not contribute to society. Those in government quickly become swept away with political power and feel the need to pass excessive regulations and push their own political and social agenda to their own benefit.

Very Conservative

Other than Tony Perkins, I have not found many people who are as Christian conservative as I am. Political candidates who claim to be conservative often end up dancing with the democrats or being swooned by the liberal lobbyists. They cater to the demands of donors and jump to the voices of the complainers who yell the loudest. We need principled leaders who will make the right decision regardless of the noise and special interests.

My website is filled with videos, interviews, and media reports that I did not make. www.johnraymond.com

No

I am the founder and Pastor of New Horizon Church, founder and headmaster of Lakeside Christian Academy, and the owner of The Bridge Radio 88.7 FM. I married my college sweetheart in 1986, and we’ve raised three wonderful children. Our oldest son is a Fireman in Slidell, our daughter has her own marketing firm and is married to an ER Doctor, and our youngest son is a teacher at our Christian school. We also have two grandchildren. I’ve been elected to the St. Tammany Republican Parish Executive Committee and the Republican State Central Committee. I have volunteered literally thousands of hours in a wide variety of community projects and political efforts to advance Christian conservative principles and preserve our quality of life. I was instrumental in the major battle to stop the casinos from coming to St. Tammany Parish and I was an integral part of developing an organization of over 550 St. Tammany business owners that rallied around that effort. In addition, I brought together over forty of the most prominent pastors in the parish of all denominations, to sign a resolution letter opposing the casino on behalf of a unified faith community. That has never been done before. With the help of hundreds of community leaders and thousands of voters, we won an overwhelming victory that defied all odds, and sent a shockwave all the way to Baton Rouge that will last for decades. That 9-month casino battle demanded tremendous time and effort, with no compensation except the reward of having served the greater good for our residents. I’ve engaged passionately in the fight to protect the innocence of our children in our public libraries. I’m not merely saying what I might do if I’m elected. I’ve already been doing it for years. My campaign website, www.johnraymond.com, shows a few of the videos when I assisted Representatives and Senators by testifying to support good bills, or stop bad ones; including: 1. Putting “In God We Trust” in school classrooms. 2. Offering an elective class in high schools to teach the Bible from a historic and literary standpoint. 3. Protect churches from unfair closures. 4. Helping parents protect their children from sexually explicit material in libraries. 5. Protecting schoolteachers from civil liability for breaking up fights or defending themselves. 6. Removing sexual grooming and gender transitioning conversations from classrooms. 7. Giving teachers the freedom to not use preferred pronouns for students contrary to their birth gender. 8. Helped to stop a bill that would have legalized abortion. 9. Helped to stop a bill that would have legalized prostitution. 10. And helped to stop a bill that would have forced business owners to hire Transgender applicants or be sued. We need to reduce crime by establishing more stringent policies to reduce repeat offenders. We have to reduce our excessive state budget. As a financial planner for over a decade, I had to quickly assess the financial situation of a family or small business, find the weak points, identify limited resources, and restructure strategies to reach short-term and long-term goals. Inflated insurance rates have spiraled out of control. Homeowners and business owners are fleeing to other states. This has to be reversed. We need to turn Louisiana into a competitive state by fixing our outdated tax structure. This will attract new businesses and expand our current businesses. We need to create high-paying, jobs that will allow our talented college grads to remain in Louisiana. We are losing our best and brightest when we have every resource necessary to keep them here. This out-migration has to stop. I’ve been serving others for my entire life, NOT for personal profit or political power, but because I love others and want to give my life to public service and advancing the kingdom of God. Our state and our nation are in extremely perilous and confusing times. If we don’t take a strong conservative stand now, it will be virtually impossible to hold back the tide of liberalism and immorality as the next generation is indoctrinated with the current liberal philosophies. A critical requirement for a State Representative is that he or she represents the residents of that district. I’m not a recent transplant to this area. I have a deep love for the area I’ve lived in for 23 years. I know the people and I understand the problems. I am by far the most experienced, qualified, and proven candidate in this race. District 104 deserves to have someone who will hit the ground running rather than trying to learn how politics work at the legislative level, or even decide if they truly want to serve in public office. I’m not running for State Representative because I need a job. I’m running because I’ve already been doing the job that I’m applying for as a community leader, and doing it very well. I truly appreciate your prayers and your vote for State Representative District 104. Thank you.

Strongly Agree

If a cop needs to stop in the middle of an emergency situation or life-threatening attack to consult his attorney, he will be killed, and our communities and justice system will suffer. We need quality police training and effective policies for them to follow. But at the end of the day, their job is extremely difficult and they should be able to do it without unnecessary fear of reprisal for doing it.

Strongly Disagree

We need to defend the police, not defund the police. The liberals want us to defund local police departments so that chaos will increase and open the door for federal police to come in under a government dictatorship. Your local police are your friends and neighbors, they have the citizens' best interest at heart.

Keep the guns away from the bad guys, and fully arm the good guys.

Strongly Disagree

I heard of a case where an obese person sued McDonalds for making them overweight.

Strongly Agree

Strongly Agree

Please see the 3-minute video of my testimony on Senate Bill 7 on my website at www.johnraymond.com "We are at war with those who wish to destroy the morals of our society, and rob our children of their innocence. And we must win this war!"