Step up America!

I've often said that I didn't leave the Republican party, the Republican party left me. In no place, did I find a clearer example of how this occurred than in a letter from James Dobson to his followers. In case you didn't know, Mr. Dobson is the chairman of the board for Focus on the Family.  After reading his document, one wonders if the group should be called "Focus on Fear".  Despite it's innocent sounding name, Focus on the Family believes in returning to core values which, when put through the secret decoder ring of any member of this century, means division, discrimination, judgement, fear, and hatred for all that isn't Christian, white, and pure.  His letter is entitled "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America".  The letter is 15 pages long and I won't bore you with it, but here are just 15 predictions that Mr. Dobson makes about the, apparently, intense change four years of an Obama presidency will bring...

• Boy Scouts disband after refusing to allow homosexual scoutmasters to sleep in the same tent as young boys
  
• First-graders get “compulsory training in varieties of gender identity,” and parents can no longer opt out of school-based sex ed for their kids
  
• Churches are declared “public accommodations” and forced to offer marriage ceremonies for homosexual couples
  
• Military must offer “sensitivity training” for troops forced to accept enlisted homosexuals
  
• The Supreme Court declares that “proselytizing speech” does not have the same protection as other speech, and Christian ministries are banned from college campuses
  
• Nurses who do not wish to participate in abortions will lose their jobs, and doctors who deliver babies at hospitals must perform abortions or lose their licenses
  
• The FCC nullifies all restrictions on obscene speech or visual portrayals on TV, and it’s now a 24-hour non-stop diet of explicit porn
  
• States are allowed to ban guns, and illegal gun-owners face stiff fines or prison terms
  
• Home-schoolers are forced to use state-approved curricula, and rather than do so, many emigrate to New Zealand or Australia where they may teach without restrictions
  
• The U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq prompts a take-over by Al Qaeda, which in turn has carried out terrorist attacks on four U.S. cities
  
• Russia reclaims most of the old Soviet bloc, including the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Bulgaria while UN & NATO fail to take action
  
• Latin America topples toward communism as the U.S.’s pro-Chavez policies give Venezuela more weight
  
• A single-payer national health care system has banned hospital admissions for anyone over 80
  
• Periodic blackouts are the norm after a moratorium is instituted on new oil drilling, nuclear plants and CO2-emitting coal power plants
  
• Business owners and entrepreneurs have moved overseas in droves to avoid higher taxes, with a huge loss of U.S. jobs
  

I'm not going to rant about this because someone already did a way better job and I'd rather link to them.  The key point I wanted to make before I send you off to that site is that these freaks perpetuate a base that has attached itself to the Republican party like a bunch of leeches.  Conservative used to mean FISCALLY conservative, but now it means MORALLY conservative.  That switch is when the Republicans lost my vote.  

The religious followers in this country have given up on the teachings of Jesus because those teachings would have them helping the poor, the hungry, the misfortunate.  Instead, these powerful religious men have turned elections into dumbed down choices through the use of polarizing issues like gay marriage and abortion.  If Jesus were alive, I'm positive he'd be a Democrat. 

I'm trying to stay optimistic.  When I hear the report of a young boy at a McCain rally saying to an Obama supporter, "Obama is a nigger." and have his mother smile and giggle about it, it dims my hope.  How have most of us moved so far beyond this and some of us stayed so far behind?   I believe it's because of men like James Dobson.  Men who enjoy manipulating people through fear.  Fear of difference.  Fear of change.  Fear of evolution (literally and figuratively).  Fear of hope.  

Racism and division seems like such a small hill to climb.  Like a damned curb.  Step up America.

Oh, and here's the link to the rant I was referring to.