at this point, i'm going to make my first foray into political commentary, which, to be honest, is pretty intimidating, with my limited political understanding. when you're growing up in a conservative christian household going to a conservative christian school and attending a conservative christian church, these are the basics you're taught:
1. republicans are good. they don't believe in abortions, and they want to keep prayer in the schools.
2. democrats are bad. they want to take away important rights like being able to own a gun and increase the power of the government, which will eventually lead to no freedom of religion and the persecution of christians.
now, i must say, i loved my school and church (which finally updated their website, which was an extremely exciting discovery) and through both, learned many valuable things about God and life that i still hold closely. likewise, my dad did a great job of explaining his choice to be a republican, which i think has more to do with the fact that he's a business owner than with any beliefs that a primarily democratic government will lead to the apocalypse. however, the point remains that my understanding of the major political parties was pretty skewed.
now that i'm in my 20s and actually pay a little bit of attention to what's happening in politics (mostly because philip follows politics a ton and brings certian easier-to-understand happenings to my attention), i see that the lines are not so black and white. while i don't want abortions to be legal (i feel that the government can make laws about life-and-death issues, and women do have a choice - whether or not to have sex), i don't think it'd be appropriate for a teacher in a public school to pray to the (my) judeo-christian God before class. i'm not sure the phrase "under God" ought to remain in the pledge, considering i wouldn't be too thrilled about having to say "under buddha" as a grade school student, which is how a young chinese-american student might feel at present. i'm in favor of people being allowed to own a gun, but it makes sense to me that people should have to go through extensive checks and waiting periods to see if they're responsible enough. i don't care if there's a rock outside a courthouse that displays the ten commandments or not. but the bottom line with all these issues is that i don't think any of them are worth making a voting decision over. what are the real issues?
improving education is important. revitalizing the inner city is important. reducing homelessness and joblessness is important. preserving the environment is important, because the resources on this earth are limited, and "the end of the world is immanent" is not an excuse to trash the planet. not jumping head-first into a very sketchy war is important. and, typically, it's the democrats who care more about these issues.
a couple events triggered this stream of thoughts. first, philip directed me to a Washington Post article that discussed President Bush's plan to hit up the Church for support. the article begins, "The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives." according to this plan of action, by aug. 15, religious volunteers are to "talk to your Church's seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney '04" and "recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign."
to use God's people as a voting pool by being blatantly manipulative of the age-old christian=republican line of thinking is pretty low, if you ask me. when philip and i walked into a long's christian book store a few months ago, the first thing we saw was a large, beautiful painting of the president, his head bowed humbly in prayer, with the angels of lincoln and washington laying hands on him, and Jesus himself looking on with tender love and approval. this kind of blurring of lines between political parties and christianity has no place in this country. churches should be encouraging their congregations to get educated, learn what the real issues are, and vote smartly - not lift up one party/man as being God's chosen. at least the democrats have the decency to stay out of churches - where worship of God, and not political pandering - should be the focus.
the second thing that promted me to write this entry is a spam email i received from the American Family Association. it was basically an ad for Dr. James Dobson's new book, Marriage Under Fire: Why We Must Win This War. first of all, why is a christian organization lowering itself to spamming? are not christians' ethics supposed to be a little higher than porn sites and viagra ads? be respectful of my private space, for crying out loud! secondly, even the title of this book upsets me. the war language sets up an us-vs.-them mentality - "us" being christians with conservative theological beliefs, and "them" being the liberals and gays. for one thing, i consider myself a christian with conservative theological beliefs, but i don't identify at all with dobson and his crew. secondly, i have friends who are the liberals and gays i'm supposed to be battling against, and fighting them will only push them further from the wonderful love of Jesus that i've found. Christ never said "fight those whose socio-politcal views make you feel threatened." he said, "love your neighbor as yourself." lastly, the imagery of the two brides and the two grooms which appeared in this email i also found manipulative and inappropriate. why hyped-up stamps reminiscent of those that appear on "girls gone wild" - "CENSORED!"/"LEGALIZED!" why war language? why guns? once again, if being a republican means getting on the fight-gay-marriage-to-the-death bandwagon, then i'm count me out.