Recovered from the Wayback Machine
from today, played back from memory
“So, who are you voting for? Kerry or Bush?”
“I’m going to write in McCain.”
“Why? That’s throwing your vote away.”
“I don’t really care for either Bush or Kerry.”
“But McCain’s not running, that will throw your vote away.”
“I like McCain. I don’t like Kerry or Bush.”
“What don’t you like?”
“Normally I vote Republican. But this war in Iraq, I don’t like this war in Iraq. We don’t belong there. It’s costing us money and we’re not helping the people. I think we were lied to.”
“Is that the only thing you don’t like about Bush?”
“He seems like all he cares about is his corporate friends. He’s not for us, he’s for his friends.”
“How about the environment.”
“Oh God, he’s awful there.”
“Then why don’t you vote for Kerry?”
“I thought about it. Especially when those people said all those nasty things about him just because he went to Vietnam and then came back and told everyone what it was like. I really wanted to vote for him then.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“I’m concerned about his morality.”
“What morality. What’s wrong with Kerry’s morality?”
“He supports gay marriage.”
“That’s it? You don’t want to vote for Kerry because you think he supports gay marriage?”
“Yes. I don’t agree with that.”
“Well, first of all, he doesn’t support gay marriage. He believes that the issue is best left up to the state, or to the Supreme Court. But regardless, what’s wrong with gay marriage?”
“Gays are an abomination according to the Bible.”
“They’re a what?!“
“They’re an abomination. In the New Testament, gays are considered an abomination.”
“Where in the New Testament.”
“I don’t know where, but I know it’s there.”
“Where, I really want to know where in the New Testament it says gays are an abomination. “
“Well, I’ll look it up, and let you know.”
“Fine. But even if there were passages like you say in the Bible, isn’t this country founded on freedom of religion, and that it has no place in government? Don’t gays have full rights in this country, regardless of what some church people say? Don’t you believe in freedom of religion?”
“Yes I do, very much. I firmly believe that every person here has a right to worship God in whatever form they prefer.”
“But you’re basing this on your belief in a single God. What about religions that don’t believe in the Christian God? What about those who believe in a different God, or no God at all.”
“There is a God, and there is only one God, and he rules over all of us.”
“But what about the Jewish people, they don’t believe in Christ as the son of God. Atheists don’t believe in any God, and then there are Shinto and Buddhists, and dozens of other faiths that don’t believe in the Christian God. Don’t they have a right to freedom of religion?”
“Well..”
“Do you believe in freedom of religion?”
“I believe in God.”
“Do you believe in freedom of religion?”
“I don’t know.”