According to Sandy Rios, a Fox contributor and blogger, I hate God…because I’m a liberal.  This seems to be because I have  ‘opened our doors to deviancy and adjusted ourselves to the dark, foul draft’ of homosexuality, because I believe that ‘free speech is now applied more to rights to pornography and protections for curse words than to actual ideas,’ and because I don’t think that accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment is  ’another silly spectacle orchestrated by America’s most unscrupulous feminist attorney, Gloria Allred.’

Reading through her blogs reminds me of a poem written by Taylor Mali entitled “What Teachers Make.” In this poem, a dinner guest challenges Mali’s views on teaching.  In response, Mali states: ‘And I wish he hadn’t done that— asked me to be honest—because, you see, I have this policy about honesty and ass-­‐kicking: if you ask for it, then I have to let you have it.’

In that spirit, I feel the need to respond to Rios  both in the spirit of Mali and in my own words.  The question I believe she is asking is this one: what do liberals believe about God?  To answer this, I thought about my own beliefs and checked in with a few of my friends.

What do I believe?  Raised in the Jewish faith, I consider myself not ‘religious’ but ‘spiritual.’  I like to joke that my God is both black and lesbian, and possibly a whale as well.  What I mean by this is that I believe in a loving God that understands our pain, that abhors bigotry, racism, and the rape of the environment.  I believe in a God who believes that ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28). I believe in the story of Elijah visiting a couple and commending them for their hospitality amidst poverty. I believe in the Buddhist metta prayer and the attempt to ‘develop a sound pacific relationship to other human beings.’ And yes, Sandy; crucify me for this if you choose, but I also believe in the Qu’ran’s statement: ‘And what will explain to you what the steep path is? It is the freeing of a (slave) from bondage; or the giving of food in a day of famine to an orphan relative, or to a needy in distress. Then will he be of those who believe, enjoin fortitude and encourage kindness and compassion.’ (Chapter 90, 12-17).

I don’t personally care which religion states the wisdom; I look for inspiration and a way to live in harmony with God and the world from all faiths.  My personal beliefs can be summed up by two famous music quotes. From Mick Jagger: “you can’t always get what you want… but if you try sometime/you just might find/you get what you need”.  And from John Lennon: ‘and in the end/the love you take/is equal to/the love you make.’ That pretty much sums up what I believe, and while it doesn’t nearly match the poetic thunder of Taylor Mali, it does provide me with a pretty good set of principles from which to live.  I pray to God on a daily basis, and I meditate when I remember.  My faith isn’t perfect  by a long shot, but it is sound.

But perhaps that’s not enough to convince Ms. Rios that liberals do in fact have religious principles.  So I asked a few liberal friends of mine for their beliefs.  Strangely enough, some of them consider themselves Christians.  One of them is my friend Leslie (name has been changed.) She states: I believe in God/Jesus, I pray everyday, but I have also always believed in evolution, have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality or their right to marry, support a separation of church and state, and I am pro-choice… it sickens me that Christianity is continuously being used by people like Rick Santorum as an excuse for what I see as a war against women, among others. ”

Leslie does not see her views as contradictory; rather, she finds the beliefs of the Tea Party problematic: “Homosexuality being a sin isn’t in the Ten Commandments, but adultery is.  Yet they don’t campaign against that daily.  They bemoan how same sex marriage will ruin the institution of marriage, yet they seem to have no problem with adultery or the 50% divorce rate of heterosexuals.   A gay couple who has been together for years cannot marry, yet Newt Gingrich is on his third wife….{they} need to accept that not everyone believes what you do. ’

Does Leslie hate God?  It doesn’t seem so.  Do I hate God?  I don’t think so.  Does Sandy Rios speak for all Christians or all people?  It doesn’t appear so.  What, then, is the issue?  Perhaps Leslie hit it right on the head.  It is possible to be a Christian and a liberal, a Jew and a conservative, or even a ‘godless atheist’ and a believer in Tea Party principals.  What irks me about Sandy Rios is what irks me about Rick Santorum; both are arrogant in their belief that there is only one right belief and that they have it — and that everyone else should. It reminds me of a recent cartoon on Facebook, which shows a woman shouting her beliefs at the top of her lungs.  When someone says “I disagree” (not even a contradiction, just a statement of belief), the woman shouts about her freedom of religion being taken away.  For some people, freedom means the right to speak the accepted viewpoint.  Divergence is apostasy, and the Party knows that Ignorance is Truth. But wait — are we talking about the Tea Party or about the Party in 1984? What is truly frightening about Ms. Rios and Mr. Santorum, what is truly frightening about today’s right-wing, is that they either didn’t read the novel, don’t realize that it was fiction, or truly believe that God isn’t that which is described in the Gospels, but rather  Big Brother in New Testament dress.  And how do you argue with that?

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