Mitt the Mormon

There are numerous reasons not to vote for Mitt Romney. I do not think he is a good candidate and find myself more and more questioning if he is even a good man. Essentially however I believe Romney probably is a good man, I think he is just over his head in the very public task of running for President.

One thing needs to be made clear however, anyone choosing not to vote for Mitt Romney on the basis of his religion is no better than those who would not vote for President Obama because he was black, or President Kennedy because he was Catholic.

Brian Williams devoted his entire show last week to examing Mormonism in America. This in itself might have been a strong an advertisement for the Candidate Romney as he will run himself. The stories were evenhanded, not all the people spoken to were enthralled with the religion. Still the basic tenants of Mormonism are really a picture of what is and can be good in all of us.

Until 1978 Mormons did not accept black people as members in full. Women are still not allowed to be priestholders. There are issues of modernity that affect this church. The question we need to ask ourselves is are there not in any church.

Mormons believe in strong,large, families. They believe in helping each other, their charity is a standard part of their existence. Young Mormon men go on a two year mission to convert souls. They pay for this themselves. Think about asking your son or daughter to give up two years of their life to go somewhere not of their choosing to spread the word of God. I do not know how anyone can but admire that experience and the personal growth it would bring about.

The Catholic church in America has issues with women, their role in the church, reproductive rights. The Angelican church has issues that split the church such as homosexuality in the priesthood.

Factually all churches have divisions. All churches have members who leave. Still as Jesus said " faith without works is dead." No one can accuse most Mormons of faith without works.

We get caught up in things that deflect from the true nature of the faith. We talk about the unliklihood of Joseph Smith finding Golden Tablets in upstare New York with the help of an angel. Only a fool would fail to see the irony in that when most of us follow and believe in virgin births, Jesus walking on water, and Resurrection.

People speculate on the magic underwear. Really? The Mormon folks tell us they feel it reminds the of who they are and what they believe at all times. Is that such a big deal? I wear a cross around my neck. My savior was killed on a cross. Why do I wear it it?It reminds me of My God and my faith. Is there really such a difference?

In short when I look at the positions Romney takes on the issues I could not bring myself to vote for him. For the most part I think however that may have as much to do with him not being Mormon enough in his principles as being Mormon.

Please do not vote for Romney. Let's also not let, however, the essential goodness of his church get caught up in that dislike.

Julian, Ecuador and What is Wrong With This Picture

Last week Julian Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Engand over the last few days has made threats and overtures to take Assange by force and extadite him to Sweden.

This concerns the United States because Assange is the man responsible for WikiLeaks. Last year Wikileaks was responsible for the release of hundreds of classified United States documents and cables. This included U S Army documents whose origins were traced back to Private Bradley Manning. Manning now sits in a small solitary cell as he awaits trial for very serious treason offenses.

I do not purport to understand the whole situation. In America folks like Micheal Moore and other obvious liberals defend Manning and Assange on issues of free speech. I am a free speech advocate too but I do not understand how this can be asserted in this case. If you are in the military and you steal or release classified information it does not seem to me that you can claim free speech as a reason.

We can all agree or disagree on if information should be classified. We can state that we do not feel that Manning is being treated in the spirit of justice that we feel proper. That said what could he possibly have thought was going to happen if he was caught.

As to Assange. The safe haven allowed by embassies is well known. We certainly would not want China to invade our embassy should we hold a dissident, with that in mind encouraging Great Britain to take Assange by force is a bad idea and a bad precedent. He will not be going far, and frankly the United States case against Assange is much less strong. After all The New York Times released The Pentagon Papers and no one lined up to defend Nixon on that case. Assange is not a United States citizen. We do not have to like him but I am not sure that we really have much legal basis to pursue him.

That said I am not sure why being liberal such as Moore makes one want to have my countries classified documents released.

It is a conflict I do not quite understand the origin of.

Three More Idiots...No Make That Four

In the last hour, literally in just the last hour, since my best friend texted me and told me I needed to dial back the lefty, get out of the house, breathe etc these three stories have either come aceoss the wires or to my attention. By the way this friend is a tried and true Republican, but he is the reasonable one we always hope for. I would vote for him tomorrow

However Brother Right listen to this.

Missuri Senate Candidate Todd Aiken answering a question about his opposition to abortion in cases of rape said " that as he understands it this is not that big an issue because if it is a " legitimate " rape than the body knows this and does not allow the woman to become pregnant."

Ann Romney speaking to a Conservative women's group when asked about equal pay for women doing the same job as men said " why should women get paid as much as men, they have not been in the workforce that long. I don't get paid a dime for the work I do, as stay home, like most women should. If a woman is out there in the workforce she should just be happy and be quiet and quit complaining."

Republican Congressman and theie entourages including family and staff members took a swim in the Sea of Gailee after a dinner last fall. Some were drinking, one Kamsas representative admitted to going skinny dipping in the holy water.

Pennsylvania State Senator admitted that the Voter Id Law was not to stop fraud but to win the state for Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile in Ohio early voting has been restricted in urban areas to work hours on week days. In suburban and rural areas weekend voting is still a possibility. Why? In Ohio voter election boards in each county are made up of 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats. In Cleveland and other heavily minority areas the Republican electors vote against weekend voting and the tie is broken by the Republican Secretary of State. In other areas the Republicans have no worries about weekend voting and offer no objections.

Just in case we did not clearly understand the purpose of all this a Republican State Senator quoted this weekend as stating he did not see why he should want to facilitate the " urban, African American gt out the vote efforts."

This is all too much, you could not make it up. Those on the right are so sure we are stupid that they admit their plans and dare uso do something about it.

I hope we do.

The Debates

We learned last week that there will be theee Presidential debates this fall. Barely had the news been releases than we started hearing about the outrage over who has been chosen to host the debates.

Why? Because no people of color were chosen. Seriously? Specifically we are told Glen Ifill is livid that she was bypassed. I guess I do not understand. Does Gwen get to do it everytime. Candy Crowley was chosen. Are we really at he point now where we have to choose a latino, a black, and a woman.

It sounds like the begiining of a bad joke. This is the most ridiculous story of the week.

Grover Norquist is a Punk

I just read an interview where Grover Norquist, the man who holds Republicans feet to the fire with these no new taxes pledges called George Bush Sr. A liar. We all remember Bush's no new taxes, read my lips pledge and how he broke it.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves this. Why would we elect people to Congeess who before they even take office, before they even see what issues might arise, give away there need decision on taxes or anything else.

Grover Norquist. What has he been elected to, when has he Ever made more than a theoretical decision on tax or any other policy.

Me thinks old George could still kick his ass and would probably like to.

Mitt and Paul's Crazy Week

Well a new comedy hit the road this week. Mitt and Paul. So much has happened this week, so little of it significant that I thought perhaps the best way to address it all was with a few bullet points. Keep in mind they are in no particular order of importance because I do not know if any of it is important.

We learned this week that if one wants to, and if one wants to perhaps an examination is in order, one can find pictures of a shirtless Ryan, Romney, Obama, and even old Joe on the internet. Let's be glad Hillary is not on the ticket.

We learned that Mitt Romney has gone over his taxes, since we were all so curious, and found that yes, in fact, he has paid at least an average of thirteen percent taxes over the last ten years. Wow, that makes me feel better. He will not however be proving it, he just asks us to trust him.

We saw a Romney spokesperson asked if Mitt would invest in a business that only provided two, and two incomplete, at that years of tax returns. We all smiled knowingly.

Mitt Romney late last week, with a straight face, told us that he did not even know when his wife's Olympic sport took place. Seriously if your wife was involved in Olympic Basket Weaving and you were allergic to straw you still would know when the event was and would be there watching. One one hand is Romney trying to distance himself from this perceived effeminate and tra la la sport, on the other he is telling his wife that what she has invested in is not worth his interest. Either way Mitt cannot win on this one. Oh yes, he could say this is important to my wife so I am going to be there to support her.

Another Romney spokesperson stated that Romney had a Medicare plan but was not going to release it's specific's because then they would " lose." Seriously, I am not making this stuff up.

Better yet Romney's team said he had a plan to fix the tax code, but again would not be talking about it until after they were elected.

Ladies and Gentleman. In my hand under this blanket I have something you will like, if you would please just give me a cashier's check for 10K I will then let you see what you have purchased. Again, I tell you, you cannot make this stuff up. Romney does not even respect us enough to lie in specifics, he comes right out and tells us we are too dumb to need to know, just trust him.

Then last night I read a report that talks about the former head of the California Republican Party urging all Republicans to abstain from voting for Romney on the first ballot at the convention. Why? He states that Romney's company Bain has made hundreds of millions from an investment in a company that has become one of the if not the leading medical waste disposal company in the country. Much of those profits come from the disposal of aborted fetuses. We can all agree this is an awful subject and a sad necessity but to the right Romney's making money from abortons might not sit well. This, they claim, is why his tax returns are so toxic.

I do not claim to know the truth but seriously. A man with bank accounts in the Cayman Island, Swiss bank accounts, an outsourcing wizard, a venture capitalist that bleeds companies dry, and keeps the proceeds for himself while employees are often left in the street. A man who has no opinon he cannot change, abortion, healthcare, and recently, shockingly, his opinion of the Ryan budget and Medicare plan which a week after he chooses Paul Ryan as his Vice President we see him running away from.

One thing I do know. This election cannot be about Mitt Romney. If it is he will lose, with the amount of money gathered on the right to defeat Obama, expect some incredible ads, incredible allegations, and incredible hated to start spewing. We in Maine will be somewhat protected from this. Our state is for the most part considered blue and thus a great deal of money might not be spent on ads here.

We have our own issues of course. LePage's lapdogs are all running again this time and business interests looking to make sure he takes on unions and other enemies of big business will be spending as much as necessary to try to keep his majority but perhaps we will be insulated from some of the bile at the top.

Look there are good Republicans out there, there are respectable, ethical, solid Republicans out there that would do a credible job as President. Mitt Romney is not one of them. Sad to say, shocking to say, I would have voted for Bush the Jr before I voted for this clown.

Voter ID Laws: What they really mean

When we talk about elections we always hear talk of turnout. The phrase whoever energizes their base the most will win the election. In the old days of Chicago we would hear that the Chicago machine would steal elections by having dead people vote and of course anyone who knows the story of LBJ knows that he was called Landslide Lyndon when he stole his original election to the Senate in 1948 down on the Mexican border.

So, voter fraud has always been an issue. Democrats want a high turnout and Republicans usually hope for a low turnout. Over the last ten years Republican Governors have purged voter rolls in an effort to do everything possible to limit minority voter turnout, we see that the most ineffective and most prone to breaking down voting equipment is usually the that which is in the low income minority areas.

This year however the attempts in some states have been more blatant and brazen than before. Pennsylvania, always a key state, has just passed a Voter ID law that is one of the most restrictive in the nation. It was just upheld by a state judge so, while appeals are still proceeding, there is a good chance it will be in effect in November.

How many people do you know without a picture ID. Not many. The truth is these are usually young people, minorities, or very old people who no longer drive. It does not take a genius to know what way the majority of these voters lean. Republicans while acknowledging that their have been no rashes of voter fraud simply claim to want to make sure none happen.

It is all such, pardon the phrase, bullshit. Republicans want to keep people from voting because they know their people will vote. Democrats want everybody to vote, because the majority of those who do not often vote, will, if they do vote, vote Democratic. Cannot we just say that. Everyone knows it. Yet we dress it up in voter fraud hyperbole.

I have not seen many examples of voter fraud in the last couple of decades, there have been numerous examples of voter suppression over the last few election cycles. These are continually from the right.

This election will be very close. If the right can win Pennsylvania by limiting voter turnout in Philadelphia alone it could sway the state and thus the national election. These issues matter.

Governor LePage's Double Top-Secret Plan

So yesterday news leaked out of the Governor when speaking to a meeting of Republican legislators on Wednesday stated that he would be calling back the legislature to a special session to attempt to force through a special bill that he said would be " divisive and partisan." Further he stated that that if Democrats " hated him now, wait until they see what he does next."

Let the speculation begin. What secret might the Governor have. That he hates public employees. That he wants to cheat people out of their state pensions. Or that he would like to step on the neck of unions by limiting collective bargaining rights. These are all likely scenarios.

The first thing we should note is this. That the same Republicans who will be appearing like a lap dog at his special session are the same ones who could not be bothered to appear at a special meeting to vote on the Governor's line item veto of a budget provision they negotiated in supposed good faith with Democrats a few months ago. Anyone expecting Democrats to trust anything their counterparts do or say in the upcoming session should have their head examined.

Why now. It might well be another example of Governor LePage going for broke. He has not been on the national news for a couple of weeks, certainly he would like to correct that. My guess would be that he has to have a concern about, in a Presidential election year, turnout for Obama at the top, tipping his majority in the state legislature into the hands of the Democrats. Clearly should he lose that majority any chance he would have to succeed in his plans would be gone.

That said, Republican members of the State Senate and House do have to get elected in November. It remains to be seen if LePage can get enough support for something extremely radical to pass right before the election.

If nothing else it shows that LePage is a true believer. What remains to be seen is how much his puppy dogs will follow along should he ask them to do something that might cause them to risk their own seats.

The best thing about the coming election is that it will start the clock on replacing LePage in two years. Who would have ever thought that we would be saddled with one of these ridiculous nutjob Governors. It really boggles the mind that it has come to this.

My Minority View of the Olympics

I watched very little of the Olympics over the last couple of weeks. When I mentioned this to friends and family they all looked at me like I was defective. I guess I should have known, on some level I did know, that the Olympics are a big deal to a large majority of the public.

Why do I not watch. I am not a two week a year Sports fan. Most of the events in the Olympics are events that the rest of the year I do not watch, I am not a big fan of swimming or track and field or most of the other events. I love my country, I certainly want them to win. I admire how hard these athletes work.

Still thirty years ago in the Olympics there was a vision that a victory over East Germany or the U S S R was an endorsement of our way of life over the totalitarian regimes behind the Iron Curtain. I do not believe anyone can really look at success in the Olympics meaning anything on a geopolitical level.

Of special concern is the basketball event. I do not embrace ninety percent of the NBA players during the season I certainly cannot do so now. And victory. Really, did anybody expect anything less. I know that we are told sometimes the hardest thing to do is win something that you are supposed to win and the Gold Medal Game showed that certainly it was possible for the Red, White, and Blue to lose to Spain had a couple things gone differently. The truth is I would not have minded. I do not think it means I love my country less. Maybe it means that the idea of multimillionaire athletes acting like winning the Gold Medal is the greatest thrill of their lives is little more than playacting to me. Or maybe this is one of the cases where I cannot keep my cynicism in.

I did enjoy the opening and closing ceremonies very much. I know everyone raves about the Chinese ceremony a few years ago, something about a bird, and I am sure the event in Rio in four years will be spectacular as well, still the common culture shared by the United States and Great Britain made these ceremonies more relevant to me. I enjoyed them. NBC had an untenable position, not showing the events live and trying to edit them into their allotted broadcast times made in the end everyone have something to nit pick. I think overall NBC did a good job, although perhaps the announcers should be taught to talk less and watch more. That too might be a matter of personal taste too however, I often tell my son to turn off the sound for a ballgame, he insists, however, he wants to hear what they are saying. Different viewpoints thats all.

My opinion on the Olympics is in the minority, I realize and accept that.

What We Think of Paul Ryan

Paul Ryan is now the choice of Mitt Romney to be his Vice President. Predictably there are differing viewpoints on the merits of the pick and about the likelihood of the choice making any impact on the final results of the Presidential race.

Ryan is a true Conservative. He is in his early forties, he is a policy wonk, and truthfully were he the candidate for President you could not ask for a better chance to debate the twenty or twenty five issues that divide this country and be sure that each side would have clear cut opinions. In short we could have a clear referendum on our future.

With Romney as the candidate, and with the Governor now asking that we not talk about family (OK), taxes ( wonder why), previous jobs ( I thought Bain Capital was what qualified him to be President), it is clear that Romney seeks to deflect any and all attention to his past and will do his best to obfuscate his policies. Romney is really a terrible candidate.

Ryan has a long career ahead of him but one wonders if he is on the wrong side of history. A few things about Ryan should be enough to settle the issue of Paul Ryan as a potential candidate once and for all.

Paul Ryan supported and still supports the private social security accounts that GW Bush was suggesting in his administration. These same accounts would have been wiped out in the last financial crisis.

Paul Ryan supports a Medicare revision that would place Seniors on a voucher system giving them X amount to spend and spend wisely with no guarantees of increasing to keep up with inflation.

Ryan on Social issues voted not to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell and does not support abortion rights even in the case of rape or incest. No matter your opinion on these issues anyone knows that demographically these are losing positions.

Paul Ryan is the ultimate supply sider. Unlike folks like Reagan and Bush Ryan really believes this stuff. He believes that rich folks with more money and less regulation will invest in the economy and things will naturally flow downwards and make things better for everyone.

Here is really all you need to know. Under Paul Ryan's tax plan Mitt Romney would have paid less than one percent of his income in taxes last year.

What can be construed as attractive in Ryan is he actually believes the things he is saying. He is not being pragmatic. He is a zealot. I am not sure what is more dangerous.

Paul Ryan would move this country back 50 years or more on social issues while taking us back to over 100 years ago financially, with a tax policy that reflects the late 1800's more than anything.

I am sure he is a good man, a good family man. He means well. He is however a perfect example of what is wrong with Republican ideas and for that demonstration we should thank Mitt Romney.

The best disinfectant is sunshine and if the Democrats can just put forth sunshine on the plans and policies of this Romney/Ryan team they cannot lose. Now unfortunately one thing Democrats no how to do better than anyone else is find a way to lose a race that it seems inconceivable they would not win, see Bush V Gore, Bush V Kerry, for examples, so one should not be overconfident. However if the Obama team runs this race correctly and just points out the factual truth of the issues that divide the two sides the race seems one that should not be lost.

It's Official : I Am a Grumpy Old Man

In many ways I like to think that I am more contemporary than many people my age. I keep up on current things, like quite a bit of modern music, and can usually find a movie that I enjoy from the sludge that is at the theater on any given weekend.

Sometimes I marvel at how the kids today all have short hair styles, remembering that the freak flag of youth used to be having long hair. I laugh at my middle son wearing his flat brimmed hats ( bad) to wearing them with a tilt ( worse ) to wearing them sideways ( thankfully not yet) and wonder what was wrong with just wearing a hat the correct way.

I taught my oldest son, who is actually quite conventional in most things and so never embraced the whole flat brimmed hat and the like, when he was just little that only catchers and buttheads wore their hat backwards and then asked him if he had a game today.

Even so I get the hat thing, famous people, famous ball players wear their hat that way, whatever I guess it is not the end of the world.

Somehow, somewhere though folks I must have missed the memo on the pants thing. Again my youngest son, who seems to be more susceptible to these trends, appeared a few times in the house with his jeans too low and we put a stop to that. Good God it is horrendous.

So, two or three times this spring, on the streets of Bangor, I have seen something that has left me speechless. I am not often speechless. I have no ability to fathom what I am seeing. My wife and I are seeing grown men, if you consider men in their early twenties grown men,walking with their underwear completely showing, with their pants, shorts, or whatever completely below, hanging on their thighs.

My wife and I look at each other and are incredulous. Someone please explain it to me. I have heard that the whole pants hanging down thing originated as jailhouse language, I do not know if that is true but even where it so why would young suburban boys want to dress like that.

However I have decided something. If to be modern and contemporary I have to chuckle and act not offended at this sort of dress then here and now, today, I acknowledge that I am not young, I am not contemporary, I am, and proudly so, well on my way to being a grumpy old man.

For God Sakes pull up your pants!

Yard Sale People Watching

We had a yard sale last week. Now I think people come down firmly in one camp or the other when it comes to yard sales, they either like them or hate them. I myself have never been one to go to yard sales. I do not like to shop, I hate Mardens, I hate having to pick over items and find what I want.

That said I know that one can find great deals at yard sales. I can remember 25 years ago my roommate at the time and I finding a gaudy blue couch beside the road in the Howard Street section of Bangor and being so thrilled. Our apartment was small, we already had one couch, but we had lots of visitors. My roommates answer, a classic, was to set the couches up back to back like a bus. Those were funny days.

But I digress. So as our attic was full enough to make me have worries over the safety of putting much else up there I said " Wife we cannot put anymore buckets of your clothes up here. " So she finally consented to having a yard sale. I was concerned about the amount of work this would put on her, so for a share of the profits, we hired my youngest son and my daughter to help out. Not the fake help but the real help and they came through admirably.

Observing people is interesting. Now I know that at yard sales it is expected that you bargain. I encouraged my wife to put higher prices on items but her goal, and correctly so, was, now that she had agreed to remove items, was not to put things back in the house when we were done. Still I had to laugh when our first customer at 8 AM on Friday wanted me to go half price on the CD's I was selling. They were already a dollar, and she seemed taken aback when I declined. Apparently I was correct as these CDS all sold very well.

We had a customer that we quoted our book prices at 75 cents who said she had no change and asked my wife if she had fifty cents and my wife said sure and broke the dollar and realized only later that she had been had. It probably made that ladies day however, and we chuckled at her as she drove away in her Lincoln Continental.

Another lady had bought an item for a dollar and paid with a bill. She came back a few minutes later with a fifty cent item and only had a twenty. I told her to just keep it and have it rather than break the twenty. She thanked us. Fifteen minutes later she appeared in front of us again, buying another fifty cent item, and miraculously she had a dollar bill. Interestingly she did not offer to pay for the previous item.

People are funny.

Counterbalancing this however was how good you felt when people who really needed something and were thrilled with their purchases. We had a gentleman who purchased my whole set of Tom Clancy hardcovers for two dollars each. As it came to sixteen I told him fifteen would suffice and he said it was the best deal he ever got. Then the gentleman offered to bring me some books. I, thinking of the books that weigh down every nook and cranny of our house said a little too forcefully, " No that is not necessary."

When I had gone it to get some lunch my wife sold a bunch of my clothes to a fellow who was thrilled and said we tripled his wardrobe, he even came back later to buy more items, wearing my pants no less.

What I discovered is that people are always offering an opportunity for you to learn about human nature.

We made about five hundred dollars. My son and daughter pitched in wonderfully, worked hard, and got along splendidly. Asked about the lack of bickering between the two that sometimes happens between them my son, in anticipation of his earnings said " money makes people act in strange ways. " He is more correct than even he knew when he said it.

The Shootings in Milwaukee

Last week a retired military man who had evidently been active in white supremacist circles went into a Sikh temple in a Milwaukee suburb and opened fire. Six people as well as the shooter were dead an hour later.

We can ask why as we always do in these circumstances. Clearly we are dealing with mental issues. We are dealing with hate and anger manifesting itself into acts that are despicable. These instances of people opening fire on complete strangers, such as Aurora, and an Omaha shopping mall a few years ago, and this incident serve to unsettle us all.

It proves that no place was safe. I am not going to go thru the whole litany of debate about gun control. I think that we as a country have made a decision that we would prefer to be an armed camp carrying the water for the moneymaking of the gun lobby, so be it, we reap what we sow.

I would like to talk about why such hatred toward folks that are different. Doing a little research on the Sikh religion in the aftermath of this shooting one thing is easily clear. These people are a peaceful, gentle, accepting sect. Their religion has more in common with the Far East religions that Islam. Yet because their followers wear turbans it appears that this gentleman associated them with Muslims. Not that their being Muslims should have qualified them for shooting either, but at least as this man sits in hell's lobby it is good to know that he knows now he did not even lash out at the people he presumed were deserving of his wrath.

Wearing a 9/11 tattoo does not make one a terrorist. Certainly I am sure many people have made similar tributes to these people killed by another cowardly act. Deciding that all people of any faith or look are enemies is always dangerous.

One should take a moment and ask themselves what kind of outrage and news coverage this case has brought. I am not one to call out the media, I do not believe in media biases being a big deal. We know what Fox and MSNBC are and are not. Media companies these days are less about ethics and more about profits. For Americans these days the choice is between watching a network that agrees with our general political tilt or does not and most make the easy choice.

Last weekend much coverage occurred but since then it really has been CNN. MSNBC has been caught up in the all encompassing flag fest that is the Olympic coverage they pay billions for but still surprising is how little this has been covered by NBC. And on Fox news the coverage has been sadly predictable falling way down on the charts in the level of importance.

It is pretty generic criticism to ask what would the news coverage have been if a Muslim man opened fire in a Protestant church. Fox news would be leading the charge and the other networks would not be far behind.

Have we really reached a point in the division of our culture that coverage and opinion on the subject of cowardly, murderous, attacks is one that is predominantly based on our political feelings. If so it does make one wonder if we are headed for some kind of breakdown in our society that will shock us all.

Are we a tinderbox of anger waiting to explode and divide.

Does Anybody Want a Chicken Sandwich

It has been interesting to watch the uproar over, of all things, Chick Fil A in recent days. It is an interesting example of how a political firestorm can happen over the most inane things.

A couple of weeks ago the CEO of Chick Fil A gave some sort of interview where he stated his opposition to gay marriage stating that " God was against it and that if we as humans kept shaking our fist at God there would be retribution."

I think that on the surface this gentleman saying that is his right. Chick Fil A makes no secret of the fact that it considers itself a business that runs on Christian principles. They are based in the South and close on Sundays. With that information the fact that the owner speaks against gay marriage should not be that much of a surprise.

As far as I am concerned if liberal companies such as the makers of Oreos want to sell rainbow Oreos to be gay friendly, and then conservative organizations want to use that information to make decisions to not buy those products I am fine with that. After all the power of purchase is something we all hold.

With that information if people who support gay causes want to choose not to buy Chick Fil A products then that is ok too. Certainly everyone has the right to make these decisions, to shop or not to shop.

What is concerning to me is not the statement and the folks making the decision to support or not support. It is the overdone response. Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum urged people to eat at Chick Fil A to support their stand. Then we have gay people protesting by having kiss in's in the parking lot.

Doesn't it all seem a little much. Clearly those on the political right are trying to profit from the controversy. I support gay marriage because my position has evolved but I undertand that good people can have different opinions.

What I think needs to happen however is that folks on both sides of any issue, and particularly this one, need to know that they hold a match. I saw a tweet that Brandon McCarthy, a pitcher for the Oakland A's who says some pretty interesting things , in which he deplored the terrible hate speech coming from this controversy. Attached to the tweet was an article that showed the most offensive tweet about the issue that had been sent. Death, Fag and other awful things were omnipresent in these tweets.

What is wrong with people. I have read the Bible front to back and yes we see the Bible talk about men not laying with men, but it also talks about adultery, not charging interest and not eating bacon. How many of the people on both sides of this issue follow those rules. And my Bible tells me that a sin is a sin is a sin except for blasphemy.

The whole thing is ridiculous. How can we solve the problems in this country if our whole political debate gets hijacked about the politics of a greasy chicken sandwich.

It is when you think about it nothing short of shameful.