I’m a Christian, and I support Obama/Biden 2008.

OMG! I’m going to hell!

What if McCain followers in our church lean on leadership to pressure me to step down from ministry? And  what if I suddenly have no new friends at church and lose the ones I have? I feel, though, that keeping silent compromises my convictions.

Once upon a time, before I was a Christian, I was WAY pro-choice…like, my newspaper columns in the college newspaper smacked of all the language one hears from most pro-choice people. Then, it just happened one morning — long before I became a mother myself (seriously, that’s how it happened) — as I readied myself for work that my mind about abortion changed and I no longer felt that it should be legal. I became one of those “people who have abortions are hellbound” Christians.

For years my sole criterion for voting for a certain way was that a candidate was pro-life. That was it. I knew all the rhetoric, including “The Bible despises the shedding of innocent blood.” I still don’t like the idea of abortion. A girl I once worked with used abortion as a form of birth control (four times in the three years we worked together) because she didn’t want to take other measures (go figure). It is one of many ugly sides of our human condition.

So, for the record, I don’t like the idea of abortion.

Lies swirl about like category 5 hurricane winds…internet rumors that are outright fabrications demonstrate the lunacy, the desperation within the Christian right to keep Obama from office. It’s so middle school! Are the Christians in our country so blinded by conservativism that they can’t see authentic decency in Barack Obama and Joe Biden? Really?

I want decency in the highest office. That matters so very much to me.

Let me ask this of all those who believe that Jesus wants us to vote for those candidates who “choose life:”

Does Jesus also want us to stand by while the rich take advantage of the poor?

Does legislating morality — removing the responsibility we have as humans who make choices — absolve us of the guilt of sin within us even though such legislated penalties may deter the action?

Aren’t there many groups within our society who matter just as much to Jesus?

Must we continue to overstay a welcome that was never extended to our military at the expense of our soldiers’ health and our future generations?

I know that I know that I know that God cares very much about the unborn. I also know that he cares very much about poverty’s trap and the oppression of the poor…about the rich getting richer and the middle class disappearing. I know that “opportunity” in this land is more of an ideal, an exception even, than the rule. Another ugly truth.

I know that while Jesus said, “The poor you will have with you always,” He didn’t mean for people to use His words to turn a blind eye and throw a coin at a person on a corner from time to time.

I make choices each day, including choosing to love God in word and in deed. Having the choice to do anything means God loves me enough to risk getting hurt by my choices. What love is this???

I am pro-life. I will never encourage anyone to have an abortion. Ever. BUT I will not vote for “faux-sincerity McCain” and “sarcastic, no-substance Palin.” I won’t do it.

So there. I’ve said it.

How’s that for a can of worms?

© Alexa Lopez, 2008