I keep promising myself that I will not write, or even talk about, this election campaign anymore. I am overdosing with anti-McCain and very anti-Palin conversations and e-mails. But….then, I read something new, or see another speech full of lies and deceptive statements, and I just can’t help myself. My ire this time is directed at the Christian Right, those Evangelical Christians who live and die for “family values” and Christian morals. They are enthusiastically supporting a presidential candidate who, upon returning from his heroic imprisonment, discovered to his horror that his wife – who had waited for him for six years – was no longer beautiful, having suffered terrible injuries in an automobile accident. True to his “Christian” values, he almost immediately began to cheat on her. He met a much younger, very glamorous — and extremely wealthy — woman, who he pursued and with whom he engaged in an extramarital affair. He married his mistress a month after divorcing his semi invalid wife, basically leaving her high and dry. For the number two spot on the ticket, the “Focus on the Family” fan club is totally enamored with this gubernatorial version of a pit bull — without the lipstick — who has a pregnant unmarried 17 year old daughter (of whom she is very proud) a husband with a record of drunk driving, and a future son-in-law who proudly proclaims he is a “f–kin’ redneck” who loves to shoot and drink and, you know, do all those things that rednecks from Wasilla like to do.
On the other side are the candidates the Christian right positively loathes because they fear for the future of America if they are elected. There’s the guy with what appears to be a great marriage to a woman who is the devoted mother of two beautiful, well-adjusted children. Additionally, he has no record of womanizing or infidelity. His running mate suffered through the death of his first wife and an infant daughter. He is a devoted husband and father who commutes an hour and a half in each direction everyday so that he can be home with his family. I am looking forward to meeting one of these Evangelical Christian types on of these days (fortunately I have good taste in friends and don’t know any) so that I can ask him, or her, to explain this to me. Then again, I know the answer. No matter how much of a scumbag McCain was, or is, with respect to his morals or his feelings about the sanctity of marriage; no matter how much of a hypocrite Palin is with respect to morality, it is OK because they are opposed to abortion. And, after all, that’s really the only thing that’s important in this world. Every other issue, every other value, every other belief, pales by comparison. As long as fetuses are safe, the family values of the adults who may run this country don’t matter. Scary, huh?