Of Polls, Politics, and Christianity

I read the other day that “The Passion” has just come out on DVD and is doing well. One of the more striking things about the Republican convention was how muted the Christianity was in it. Word on the street is that this was quite deliberate and designed essentially to broaden the Party’s appeal.

I’m a great believer in Truth in Packaging and I think this did everyone a disservice. We need to remember the pertinent facts of the country we all live in. So I'll pass this on for what it's worth, because it seems to me to be a nice snapshot of the real interaction of politics, Christianity, and America.

I am a Buddhist of 25 years standing. I am also a registered Democrat. And, to make some needed money, I worked the polls at the last primary election as a Democratic election judge.

For the entire morning my fellow poll workers (nice retired folks, as it happens, well acquainted with one another, and not one of the scapegrace unemployed baby boomers such as myself) had a lively discussion of how moving and how sacred "The Passion" was. Of course, when I put down the Buddhist book I'd been reading to pass the empty minutes and started to go to lunch, one of the good Christian (and Republican) poll workers happened to pick it up and immediately dropped it as if it were on fire.

Nobody bothered to ask me anything about it, and the discussion of Mel Gibson's magnum opus stopped rather abruptly, I thought. Later in the afternoon, the Republican head of our team had an entertaining, and quite audible, confab with one of the voters about how the gays and the Democrats were "going too far" in San Francisco and Massachusetts.

This is, of course, a major and well-known legal no-no in a polling place, but since, as far as I could see, nobody's vote was in any way affected, it seemed impolite to challenge it. I did, however, follow the discussion with avid interest, keeping my eyes on the participants all the while.

This politeness seemed to pay off. I received, at the end of the day, very hearty and explicit wishes and hopes from my peers that I wouldn't be economically constrained to return to poll working in November.

Thinking about it later I was struck by how many Americans, usually, but not always, Christian and, more than occasionally, Republican, give one the impression that they regard the views they hold as the only ones possible for sane and moral people.

From the vantage point of those of us with other views, it is a habit which is rather unflattering to the people who have it.