Politics and family

There are two topics that generally shouldn't be discussed with family: Politics and Religion. I happen to have a very minority position in both with my family. I am the only democrat in my family, thus the lone dem title. Also most of my family are Mormons and I am not. I am a Christian and go to a non-denominational church now for nearly three years. So when these topics come up, fireworks can occur. Most times they don't as I am passive and just try to take the high road.

But lately my father has grown in his hatred of Barack Obama. Here is my father's thoughts on Obama:

- He's a muslim

- He hates America and wants to destroy it.

- He hates Whites and wants to cause a divide between blacks and whites.

- He's a communist

- He's immoral

I can go on and on about it. Every time I visit he starts with some sort of Obama comment. Almost always it's in some laughing, condescending way. I try to explain to my dad that you can disagree with Obama's views but you don't have to demonize the man. He obviously doesn't get it and just goes into his Obama tirade.

I can take most of accusations but the one I can't stand is the Muslim charge. My father thinks because he lived in Indoensia, and one of the reason why he think he hates America so much, he must be a Muslim. Because he has Muslim friends, he is a Muslim. The man is a Christian. He accept Christ and that's it. He could have written the Koran and been a descendant of Muhammed himself, but he has accept Christ as his savor. End of discussion.

Not that I see eye to eye with Obama's Christianity. I am finished his second book and just finished the chapter on Faith. For me, and I'm a big Obama supporter, there wasn't enough about his personal faith or at least him talking about it. Being a new Christian myself, I know the internal struggle that he talks about in his book and I too am reluctant to get into discussions about it. But he has a more liberal view of the Bible, where I, believe it or not, have a much more conservative view of it. Still the man professes his faith in Jesus, so let's just leave it at that please.

I try not to take what my Father says personal. His manner of argument is relentless and very condescending as I stated earlier. We will never see eye to eye and frankly I think he thinks I'm a socialist or something. I am quite moderate in my political views and it gets under my skin when he says that.

I won't even get into the Mormonism part. I'll save that for another day..