Religion and Politics

Recently a friend started an email campaign in which he passionately called for all of us to vote for McCain in the upcoming election --saying it was a "historic time" that required us to take a "moral stand." Now, this friend is a great guy, but he's out of central casting when the director calls for a Miami Cuban Republican.

He's rich and Catholic, but has many Jewish friends from growing up in Miami in the 60s and 70s, so he's also staunchly pro -Israel.

Well, after McCain picked the Katherine Harris chick from Alaska to pander to the evangelicals, Wifey blew a fuse, and started enlisting our liberal friends to join in the blogging war. In fact, there are now posts from Indiana Law School Deans, critical care doctors, lapsed Catholic CPAs, and plenty of secular JEwish Democrats, also out of central casting.

The whole affair brings home to me that there really ARE 2 Americas. They are the faith based, who believe we're all tools of God and/of Jesus Christ, and the seculars, who believe the faith based are a bunch of idiots who believe in, as George Carlin called him, the "invisible man in the sky."

Unfortunately or fortunately, I'm with the Carlins. But, unlike some of my comrades (my right wing Cuban friends, hateful of Communism, would say that's an apt term), I realize that the majority of Americans belong to the former.

My rabbi friend, a Chasid, thinks Sarah Palin is the most righteous woman to enter politics in years. This same fellow would refuse to walk into a church, or even gaze upon one, yet he has no problem with Palin's "Jesus this and Jesus that." The old cliche is so true: politcs make for strange bedfellows.

Anyway --the whole blog thing has been fun and entertaining. We've had septugenarian retured schoolteachers weigh in ( a delightful lady who had never eaten a bagel and lox but claims Golda Meir is a lifelong hero) as well as college poli sci students ("you can't vote Republican --what if one of your kids needs an abortion???!).

I think the cooler heads agree that the differences are insoluble. Such is our great country. We're indeed under the ancient Chinese cures of living in interesting times. Wake me after Election Day.