And the
answer is "No."
This must
be what happened. It is at least the theology that Far Right Christians use on
others. God punishes those in the midwest with a tornado for not praying
enough. God punishes the east coast with Superstorm Sandy because of the
Homosexuals and God wants babies to be born from rapes. This is a pretty
vengeful God, but apparently God only punishes liberals and Democrats because I
haven't heard one word about how God is
showing approval of liberal policies since the election went our way and every
one of the "Rape Politicians" lost their seat. Surely God has spoken!
But
Democrats don't tend to have this type of theology so nobody has even been
looking for the Far Right Christians to make this admission. I work as an
interpreter however and so I have interpreted what the Democrats would be
saying IF they had the vengeful theology that Far Right Christians seem to
have.
Since I
don't believe in the type of God who punishes I want to change the subject a
little bit.
I have
heard or read statements from Republicans which say that they consider America
to have irreparably changed after the election. I find this stunning because to
me the world is exactly the same as it was the day before the election.
I wonder,
are we even looking at the same things?
I know I
am looking at people's access to public institutions. I see the Republicans as
trying to restrict access to certain governmental institutions. But I think the
Republicans are looking at something else.
What are
they looking at?
At work
last month we had a couple of people come and talk to us about 401k plans. The
woman who was presenting told us a story:
"When
I was 18 I realized that my parents were not going to take care of me forever.
I realized that if things were going to get done, I had to do it. And so I had
to take responsibility for myself. So I'm standing here today as your mother,
telling you that you've got to take responsibility for yourself. Nobody else is
going to do it for you."
If I
hadn't heard Mitt Romney talking about the 47% I would have not understood what
this woman was saying to us. She was saying that she didn't want to have to pay
for people who haven't saved enough money to retire.
The
problem is that she was talking to several people who were CNA's. On the pay
scale, CNA's are on the bottom. Some of our CNA's have two jobs, just so they
can make it.
This
woman who came to my work place to present 401K plans to us was a Republican,
and it would seem that finances are the bottom line for many Republicans.
The
question is, how do we reconcile finances with increasing access to
governmental institutions? Can we hear each other? Or is the only way through
this to keep saying awful and hateful things about each other?
I hope we
can listen to each other, but to do that we must have understanding for each
other's theologies and we must understand that each of us is a human being. So
God doesn't enter into our disputes in order to punish one side and we should
understand that we are all trying very hard. I may be a Democrat but I am also
an adult and I contribute to society. A human being's value comes from being a
human being. My value does not depend on my job, or my race or my gender. This
is where we must begin.
