Strangers Passing Propaganda

I've been mulling over something for the past few days that I wanted to share.

Monday wasn’t really meant to be much of an eventful day. After breakfast, a little house cleaning, a moment or two surfing the Internet, and then an hour or so finishing up a project for work, I then took a trip into town, giving my mum a lift to her doctor’s appointment. Like I said nothing really big. Except I can’t get this conversation I’d overheard in the doctor’s waiting room out of my mind.

Mum and I had run into Doris, a kind elderly lady from the old neighborhood and sat talking for awhile. About the time Doris got around to discussing the dire global financial situation and the upcoming presidential race, I was aware of another woman eavesdropping on our conversation. Doris, at 94-years young, mentioned that she was actually considering that ‘young man, Obama and his ideas for change.’ I don't usually discuss politics with any real conviction because things can get quickly out of hand, but it was apparent this middle-aged woman sitting across from us, dressed in her long-hemmed, maroon polyester jumper, was eager to share her views. She inserted herself into the discussion to point out that her choice was all McCain. Her view was that McCain stood for all the Christian values and all the principles that made this country great, and the only candidate who upheld the constitution, ‘the way our forefathers intended.’ Obama, on the other hand, came from a decidedly UN-Christian background, was totally against Judaism; which is a threat to our Christian values, and he ultimately would turn America over to Islam.

I sat there completely dumbfounded.

Senator Obama is going to do all that? Really!

Okay, I’ve not been living in cave here. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors and innuendo about Obama’s past and present, but for some reason hearing this mild-mannered, plain-dressed, mid-western woman speak these words as easily and sincerely as if sharing a favorite recipe for apple pie, stunned me. As far as I was concerned she could have been warning that a horde of leaping leprechauns were going to be invading my hometown within the day!

Perhaps I’m terribly naïve about politics, religion, and that big old wide world out there, but as a United States citizen, and also a Christian, I find this woman’s point of view somewhat startling. I certainly don’t know Senator Obama’s motives, or even if he is brewing some insidious agenda for America, but in the same vein, I think it’s unfair to base such things entirely on a person's background. Some pretty mild-mannered, so-called Christian folks have ended their lifespans doing some heinous things. Hmm, does the name Hitler ring a bell? And before anyone gets on their soapbox to declare Christianity as the ultimate be-all, end-all religion, please recall that some of the most horrible events in history happened with the help and consent of those with what we would today call Christian values. (Read about the Crusades, perchance?).

And so what if McCain upholds the Constitution the way it was intended back when it was penned? The bottom line is that America does still stand for much of the great things she always has, but clearly, the men who wrote that great document were NOT who we have become today. And believe me, once the genii is out of the bottle, it's pretty difficult to put him back. Could we really go back to the puritan beliefs of a previous age? If that were true, John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin would be back at home baking bread and caring for her children and NOT running for vice-president of the United States. And to be honest, she wouldn’t even be able to vote. Because those ‘we the people’ referred to in the opening sentence were white male landowners. So, some things have changed, but I honestly believe the core-essentials that make our nation of independence and equality great, are still strong.

Here it is four days later and I’m still not exactly sure what bothered me the most about what this so-called Christian woman said while sitting so calmly in the doctor’s office waiting room. Perhaps it’s the fact that this blatant intolerance was spoken with so much conviction, and I hadn’t truly expected to meet an actual zealot in a place so ordinary. But I suppose that is exactly the place to find one.