Perhaps I've been overexposed to heinous hypocrisy. It's been my experience that the more despicable the act, the more likely the actor will fly large the banner of their religion.
It's more than being cut off by cars bearing the Ichthys or screwed by salesman with the same symbol on their card. In a recent "Time" cover story, 85 percent of Bush supporters said his "faith" was important to their choice. That he says God talks to him, but he doesn't read the newspapers, scares the hell out of me.
Then again, whatever hell there is in me seems to be an obsession with South Georgia friends and strangers alike. I am not an athiest, agnostic or practicing witch. I've been through the structured religion buffet as a Bible camp counselor, Catholic and Fundementalist Baptist (and all that before my 16th birthday). Faith, for me, is a way of establishing structure and meaning for those things beyond our comphrehension. It is both a personal journey and a personal choice.
But still folks in these parts insist on their breed of salvation. Since I don't attend a local church regularly, they assume responsibility for my soul. When I'm not willing to surrender it to their dogma, they take me on as their personal battle against Satan.
So I'm a little flip and usually cranky, but if you want to take on the Big Guy I believe I'm the wrong vessel.
One of my dearest friends takes great joy and solace in his religion. He is an exceptionally principled and altruistic person. His daily life choices make him the better person we all wish we could be.
Yet this man who makes mission trips to the far corners of the world believes firmly that homosexuality is a sin that can only be answered with renunciation.
Somehow, by his way of thinking, God made us all in his image, but Satan got to a certain percentage and it's our job to bring them back for the home team. The Christian values of love, brotherhood, tolerance and acceptance seem to have disappeared from his well-thumbed Bible.
We come to the same, stale, impasse every time when I insist that if my eternal reward requires denouncing people I love ,I'll take my spoils in this life in the gift of gay friends and family.
No amount of his pleading or prayers is going to change my heart, and yet he is relentless.
The Time piece on faith in the White House, the word Christian sprinkled through the local Help Wanted ads , the incessant need of others to assign possession of my soul -- smack in the face of my personal values and the Constitutional protections our country was built upon.
If you ever see a fish on my business card, you'll know I opened a bait shop.


Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs