Column for Dec. 6, 2007

I do love my liberal friends, honest I do.

I have been told that I am rather opinionated. I don't mind being considered such, since we all have opinions. Some of us are just not as afraid to express them as others. If I was afraid to express them, then I would not be sitting at my computer writing this column each and every week and you would not have the pleasure (or not) of reading my rants.

For Thanksgiving, I was invited to a friend's house to fellowship with the family. I knew enough about this person's family to avoid topics of politics and religion. For those of you who have read my columns for any length of time, you know that I am not the least bit afraid to tackle those topics at all. It is amazing that I was a really good boy. I kept my mouth shut for quite some time. The family members were the ones engaged in discussions of topics relating to politics and religion. I kept hoping that the discussion would be limited to those participants and they would leave me out of it. But nooooo! Sure enough, I was asked my opinion, and good ol' Troy had to be Troy and be honest.

One thing about my opinions and perspectives is that I have consciously spent a great deal of time working on them, pondering them, reading, praying, and refining them. In short, I put thought into what I believe and why. This was not always the case. I used to be fairly liberal in many of my views and a bit conservative in others. Once I realized how emotionally based my liberal views were, and usually baseless, I changed those views. Even today, some of my views are being shaped and refined as I grow older. Even just living in the South for two decades has rendered some perspectives I would not normally have.

I was asked my opinions on things such as the death penalty and abortion. Those are two heated debates and I don't pussy foot around them. When told that someone has a faith of a certain religious order, and then start quoting Bible verses outside their context or intended meaning, I am not the type to just nod my head. For instance, I was told that the Bible says, "Thou shalt not kill" and therefore we should not put convicted murderers to death. At the same time, I was told that it is not right to tell a woman what she can and can not do with her own body and therefore it is acceptable to abort a fetus. My response was simple and logical, that I was just told that "thou shalt not kill" apparently does not apply to a baby; that it is wrong to punish the guilty but fine to slaughter the innocent. Of course I also had to expound on the fact that the death penalty was instituted by God Himself and that "thou shalt not kill" refers to murder, not the justified taking of human life. But I guess that I was not smart enough to stop there. I even offered to be the one to flip the switch on "Old Sparky", the electric chair since that is how much I stand by my conviction and know it is right. And I have not even gotten to the part about talking with a Jewish woman about her love of eating ham with our dinner.

I used to feel the same way as my friends about abortion. By way of confession, when I was a young, stupid heathen, several of my own children were killed in the womb for the sake of convenience. I am neither bragging nor flagellating myself over it. I am merely stating fact to demonstrate the concept that my views have changed over time and I realized how illogical my thought process was.

I usually find most all so called liberal thought patterns to be rather illogical and rooted in emotion. By way of example, my friend is a liberal Catholic and big time Hillary Clinton supporter (why someone would even think about voting for someone so evil is beyond my comprehension). I, on the other hand, am a conservative Protestant (for lack of a better term for it, though I don't consider myself Protestant or protesting anything) who thinks that Hillary is about the closest thing to the Anti-Christ we will see in these United States.

The ironic thing that I find about liberals is that they often skewer conservatives as being narrow minded and intolerant. Actually, I often find the reverse to be true. I tolerate the opinions of others, even among close friends. I have friends that are Christian, agnostic, atheist, homosexuals, and heterosexual. Just because I believe that someone is wrong does not mean that I can not tolerate them as people or debase them in any way. What I find ironic and often hypocritical is the claim that having convictions makes a conservative narrow but makes a liberal open minded. I find that the liberal is often the one intolerant of contradictory views.

Now that I know that I will never be invited for Christmas dinner or even get a Christmas card because I was asked my views on politics and religion and hold fast to those views, I just shake my head in amazement.