Dear Norm,
I watched the third debacle last night
with some atheist friends
who were pained by the candidates’
statements of faith towards the end.
They were surprised, I suppose,
at the eroding holes exposed
in those sacred walls,
letting cries of wilderness voices come through,
to ring in our government’s halls.
They’re naïve, who believe
a believer can only speak sense,
should his politic speech
his faith and conscience circumvent.
How faithfully the faithless this
religious test will administer
(though the Constitution’s quite clear:
such exclusions would be sinister).
They are also deluded who would
bring their faith into the forum,
the Rabbi himself decried
public prayers’ lack of decorum.
They should go to their rooms,
alone, he said, and close the doors,
before humbly addressing themselves,
in praise, to the lord.
I could have explained to my atheist friends
how it works for Bush,
and only alienates with Kerry.
But I did not want to unduly push
their buttons, exacerbate their pain,
which grew as their champion spoke
of God as guide.
As he waxed Jesuitical,
their eyes glazed and hope broke.
I could have told them (some of) the finer
distinctions of Catholic ethical
theory, on which I’m hazy, though
I have had the teaching methodical;
how evil’s evil and sin is sin,
while the subtleties
lie in degrees of commission;
and how the statesman must
consult his faith in fulfilling his political mission.
I didn’t want to tell them, Norm.
Didn’t want to try to tip the scales
from their eyes. They would have met
my insight with anguished wails,
to hear both sides’ language decrypted
as religious right before them,
who until this moment supposed
one of the candidates was for them.
Or more for them than against them, Norm.
You know how it is these days.
Coal tinted spectacles for the people,
let them see only polarizing rays!
I’m for them, despite their intolerance
of people who admit faith when asked.
My four atheistic American friends;
my God, I think they’re the last!
Agnostically,
Louis Ellipse