Today I stood up to the right wing in my town and it felt so good!
Living in a small, republican, conservative town in Georgia, I am surrounded by people I disagree with. I home school my children to provide them with the best education but most in my town home school for religious reasons and to keep their children away from people they consider beneath them.
I am constantly receiving "home school" e-mails praising Bush and his wonderful administration and of course, the daily dose of James Dobson and the American Family Association and their petitions to stop gay marriage, stop abortion, etc. Usually I merely delete the ones that do not concern school items and give it no further thought. However, yesterday I received an e-mail praising John McCain's visit to a woman whose child was going to Iraq and how he had no media and how wonderful he was. At the bottom of the e-mail was a hateful paragraph about Obama not saluting the flag and wanting to change the National Anthem to "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing". I was so livid I could not see straight. After several attempts at a "nice" reply I decided to let it pass as ignorance and went to bed seething.
Today, I received three more hateful e-mails concerning Obama and discussing how he wants to destroy this country by providing national health care and ending tax breaks, how he is a Muslim, etc. I found myself not being able to ignore it anymore. So I promptly sent the following e-mail.
"Please remove my name from any items not related to school. As a Proud Democrat supporting Barack Obama I find myself continuously offended by your hateful e-mails. If you can not do that, then please remove my name completely. I prefer to not be associated with any group spreading hate and lies-(check your facts-Obama is Not a Muslim, he does salute the flag, he is in fact a Christian.) I thought our group was a school group and consisted of mostly Christian, tolerant people. However, I see you only support one small group's belief. I hope you understand. While I normally delete e-mails that don't concern me I feel this issue is too important! I believe the world would be a better place if more did like Jesus and loved one another instead of trying to put them down." In my small town this will have repercussions, but Damn! It sure felt good.