Witchy Woman

I was only able to listen through to the end of Biden's speech because I had to work. That was enough to make me tear up.

The prayer, unsurprisingly, annoyed me with its tendency to beat you over the head with Christianity. Then again, I am spoiled because I attend a Unitarian Univeralist church. Our prayers are much more general and are usually to the Divine, however we define it personally. As they said on NPR, Rick Warren was chosen as an appeasement to the religious right. You should already have guessed what I'm going to say. Why should anyone, let alone our very leader, have to go out of his way to make a minority happy? No, the religious nutjobs do not compose the greater portion of our nation.

Naturally, I was, and am, proud to have our first African American President. But I find the argument that this could only happen in the U.S. ridiculous. True, we are one of the few democratic countries. However, not all countries in the world are as prejudiced and racist as we are. How many other countries were founded by genocide? (Note that I said "founded by" not "currently or have ever practiced").

I do believe there will be a female president in my lifetime, only on the condition that she is white, happily married with children, moderately attractive, and Protestant. I do not, however, believe that there will be a non-Christian in the White House for at least another century, if we are still around by then.

As I have said before, I don't care what religion our leader is as long as it's a positive, life-affirming one. But the religious nutjobs and Republicans have convinced everyone that we need to have a Christian leader because we are a Christian Country (tm). And we certainly couldn't have a Muslim in office, even if it might have provided him a unique insight to help. They have even convinced people without a particular faith that Obama is a Muslim and we can't have a Muslim as President. I was talking to Bronn, who is a witch, about this very topic and he became very angry, saying that the Qur'an tells Muslims to kill anyone who is not of the faith.

Every religion has its good and bad parts. The Bible tells Christians to kill disobedient children, non-virgins who marry, women who have a flashy appearance, and just about anyone who does not conform. The same as parts of the Bible, the Qur'an tells Muslims to defend themselves, but not wholesale slaughter. Just like the infamous "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," some Muslims have taken parts of their scripture out of context for their own purposes. And don't forget, we Pagans have had our human sacrifices, feeding Christians to the lions (although that was more for political purposes than anything else), and the like in our past.

Ultimately, it's what we take from our faiths and focus on and practice in our lives. Sure, some people can take the hate and violence from theirs, and just as many, if not the majority, choose to focus on the positive, life-affirming aspects.