Another Weigh-In From A Reader

Damn.  The politicians suckered us again.  Another opinion from a reader.

So, here's my weigh in...

1) To say that policy is divorced from religion in the US is barely credible. In fact, God's name is on everything from courts to bldgs to dolla dolla bills baby. Should it be? IMHO, every policy that wishes to succeed better start with God, but I recognize that this is MHO.

2) Politicians' Mamas had babies not fools. Both the way the language was written in the original bill and its re-write by Jerry and his pals were meant to win friends and influence people. I'll go even further: Christians. In fact, all was designed to force us to evaluate policy through a Christian lens.

After the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, state attorney general Jerry Brown changed the description of Prop. 8 that will appear on ballots in November to reflect the fact that the measure will “eliminate [the] right of same-sex couples to marry." Formerly the wording simply affirmed that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized." (Attesting to the importance of the language, Prop. 8 supporters sued to keep the original description but were denied.)

True to form, we liberal Christians found ourselves in a quite a quandry. Truth, the Bible does not equivocate about marriage or homosexuality. And if we have been on the path tryin' to follow Jesus, we already knew it ain't easy to reconcile this condemnation with the love of Christ. Fortunately, the Bible makes it clear that we lowly Christians don't have to -- God's got that covered. We need only to "judge not" so we be not judged.

Enter a politically charged election. While God sees our hearts, Christians like I are not that good. We are left to surmise WJWD (What Jesus Would Do) ONLY because the politicians called the question. Not God. He still had it covered. Nonetheless, standing at the polls we had three options:

a) Vote our conscience

b) Vote our Bible

c) Don't vote the issue (intolerable, for reasons too obvious to waste space here)

I'll admit this single issue was the most difficult for me, a prototypical liberal Christian. I believe "marriage" to be a religious construct, one that exists exclusively between a man and a woman. And while I fully support same sex civil unions, I'm not naive enough to believe separate is ever equal.

Thank GOD I have two sane, simple influences in my life. First my pastor. Though he was prohibited by law from influencing anyone on any issue from the pulpit, he said simply this: "think about who has what to gain, and vote in a way that does the most people the most good." Second, my tweener daughter even simplified it more. "It's just not fair."  Don't need to look any further to find WJWD. No on 8. No to defining prohibitions instead of rights.

So what's my point: Y'all fell into EXACTLY the trap the politicians engineered to get out the vote for other purposes, often self serving. If you feel the vote went the wrong way use your energy to work to fix it, rather than banter with each other. I predict you'll never agree. 

By devisive design.