Back in the saddle

I’d like to apologize to both of my readers for slacking off lately. A trip to New Orleans, illness, and a short tour of southern Maine got me off of the writing thing, so here we go again.

Anything interesting happen since the end of October? Wasn’t there an election or something? It vaguely rings a bell. I’ll think of it eventually.

There was apparently a large spike in death threats against the entire Obama family during Sarah Palin’s unfortunate run for VP. The whole meme of Obama as foreign terrorist translated to many as “he wants to take our property and our guns, ban our religion and destroy us”. This is pretty hardcore politics, and it seems to have provided a tipping point for some of the white supremacists and hard right nationalists that exist in America, and exist to our national shame.

These people feel a genuine, heartfelt need to save their families and their way of life from foreign, alien, un-American forces that will ban the bible, force abortions on the unwilling, teach explicit sex ed to preschoolers and force the Boy Scouts to hire gay counselors to sleep with young boys. These are actual quotes from a James Dobson (Focus on the Family) letter posted on his web site. There have been widespread musings about whether Obama is the anti-Christ.

If this is the kind of thing your spiritual advisor is telling you, then for a substantial number of Americans, killing Obama is God’s will. What an incredible perversion of faith these people are foisting on their flocks. We’re talking about a Protestant Christian American born man who has served in public service or teaching for most of his adult life, and there are likely millions of Americans who believe the American and Christian thing to do is kill him.

My only comfort is that the younger generation of Christians I know, mostly family, are embarrassed by people like James Dobson and Pat Robertson and other voices of intolerance. That leaves the old, the uneducated, and of course the bitter ones, clinging to their guns and religion. But enough of them have weapons and motivation from a perversion of Christianity to be a very credible threat. It is very, very wrong. And unfortunately, it’s a mainstay of Republican and conservative electioneering.

At least we can rest easier knowing that the wildly unpopular incumbent has put together a massive Secret Service to keep the rabble at bay. The new presidential limo apparently has bulletproof windows five inches thick. Windows. Five inches. Mine are what, maybe 3/8”?

Anyway, here’s to hoping that a black American president flushes the racists from hiding, and we get to see them for what they are. But what about the millions of Southern Baptists who just think they are doing their Christian and American duty? Something has to give, but I sure as hell don’t know what.