Thought Theater

If you listen to Pastor John Hagee, modern women are little more than sinful secular caricatures of all he would deem wrong with the fictional women portrayed on Sex & The City. In fact, he sets out to portray independent women (feminists) as little more than hedonistic sluts who engage in the excesses of self-satisfaction. Yes, according to Hagee, nothing about modernity...as it applies to women...is sufficient or redeeming in the eyes of the obtuse pastor.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb and attempt to identify the hypocrisy that emanates from men like Hagee...especially when they set out to proclaim one political candidate superior to another...while never comparing and contrasting the reality of the lives of the candidates with the rhetoric they espouse.

First, an important caveat. I don't actually think the personal lives of candidates and their families are all that relevant to their ability to execute the duties of the positions they seek. However, when one side of the political spectrum decides to make morality and values the prevailing determinant for their followers, the other side must respond to the pointed attacks launched to impeach the character of their candidates...or their family members.

Here's the point. Many within the GOP want to portray Michelle Obama as a "modern woman". They did the same with Hillary Clinton for years. While these current assailants refrain from defining Michelle Obama by the specific attributes mentioned by Hagee in the video below, they associate her with the notion of modernity...and therefore they endeavor to infer that her values are aligned with the specious caricature described by Hagee. Hence, the sympathetic voter is never asked to take the time to complete a thoughtful examination of Michelle Obama's values and her redeeming attributes. In fact, those voters who are predisposed to accepting Hagee's world view are asked to do little more than connect Michelle Obama with modernity...and therefore the derisive definition provided.

At the same time, they hold up their own candidates and their families as examples of all that is decent and moral...predicated upon the one-dimensional assumption that their candidate will cast votes that support the agenda of the religious right and men like Hagee. Here's the problem...they do so while ignoring any of the questionable values that their candidate, and/or the family of their candidate, may have demonstrated over the course of their lives.

In other words, the morality of their candidate is only measured on the basis of the votes that candidate will promise to cast. This means that men like Hagee (and the followers they lead) are fully content to disregard the personal history and morality of their chosen candidate (while highlighting that of the opposition) if the result is political gain.

I find this strategy to be an abrogation of reality that is not only unacceptable...it is also an act of incorrigible deception. Even worse, it is an insult to the morality that is worn like a badge by men of John Hagee's ilk. You may be thinking that this is the point at which I plan to pivot to assail the values and morality of John and Cindy McCain. It isn't and I won't. It isn't necessary since anyone who wants to pursue such comparisons, without prejudice, can find the relevant documentation in the public record.

You see, choosing our next president shouldn't be limited to a measurement of the values of Barack Obama or John McCain...or their wives. Unfortunately, there are those, like Hagee, who would seek to misconstrue the values of others for political gain and power...under the guise of religious righteousness. Truth be told, Michelle Obama's modernity should not be an indictment of her values any more than Cindy McCain's unfortunate battle with drug addiction should overwhelm the good deeds she's performed.

Those who hide behind the rhetoric of religion to pursue power are a threat to the values we hold because their manipulations are designed to misconstrue morality. In doing so, good people frequently become unsuspecting casualties. As we approach the November election, the task of all Americans is to sift through the smoke.

When men like John Hagee tell us that modernity offends motherhood, our obligation, as people who espouse a commitment to the family, is to look to those mothers who have embraced modernity (women like Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton) and conduct an honest examination...absent the hyperbole of those who seek to promote patriarchy at the expense of progress.

In the end, humanity will only achieve it's potential when it refuses to stifle the vast potential that resides in all of us...regardless of gender or any other label that is attached as a means of limitation. If Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama represent modernity, then John Hagee and those who entertain his ideology of oppression are the unacceptable antithesis. I'm hopeful that 2008 will be the year that voters choose to turn this cathartic corner.