Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned. As a fundamentalist, pro-life, Bush-loving, gay-hating, patriotic, afraid-of-the-caliphate, SUV-driving Christian Republican, I was taken in by my party's optimism. They said they were going to win on Tuesday, and so, because I believe in lending aid to the downtrodden, I voted for the Democrats. Across the board, every one I could find, until my ballot nearly turned blue in my hands. I was full of shame, but I did it out of love for my leaders -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condee Rice, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay, Alberto Gonzales, Tony Scalia, Mark Foley, Sammy Alito, Rick Santorum, Dennis Hastert, Katherine Harris, even Jesse Helms (may he rest in peace) -- every one of them, so our victory wouldn't seem too hurtful to our pitiable competition. I told my friends to do the same and many of them did, all in the name of fairness, and to make peace with our enemies, lest they outnumber us some day.
Well that day sure got here fast! When we heard the news, my friends and I, we all high-tailed it on down to the church to seek our minister's counsel. We found him throwing out some crystal meth he had bought in a moment of weakness, and we saw a young, good-looking man in his underwear running out the back door of the sanctuary. But we had more important matters on our mind than indulging our impure curiosity. We went to the minister and asked him to absolve us from the evil we had done in putting Democrats back in control of Congress. We told him we didn't mean to do it, but that the Lord had come to us and said it was the right thing. To help the weak. To give comfort to the powerless. To save the doomed.
The minister was angry. He called us fools and questioned our devotion to God. "Did you vote Democrat because it was the Christian thing to do?!," he screamed, "or because in your heart of hearts, you had turned away from our president's holy war, turned from our mission to preserve America's morality, turned from blind devotion to the ideals of the past, betrayed the Republican Jesus Himself?"
The minister then turned from us and stormed out of the church, all the while scanning about as if he had lost something or someone. We were left standing in the aisle looking at one another, mouths agape, wondering what went wrong. Someone suggested we atone by finding a Democrat in town and making him "pay," but we decided this was a little too drastic an approach. Still, we had to purge ourselves somehow of the guilt over what we had done. So we clasped hands and began to pray. We began to pray for the Democrats, that they would give up their godless ways and follow the Republicans before them. After all, they, too, can help start wars. They, too, can learn to divide and conquer. To use scapegoats to gain political capital. And most of all, to find any means possible -- no matter what it is -- to keep America safe and strong against her enemies without and within.
Our prayers continue as our shock subsides. And as always, of course, we seek the answer in our faith. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and this seems one of the most mysterious of all. That He would have us be the ones to put the Democrats back in the pulpit. Could it possibly be that our leaders have deceived us? That it was the Democrats all along who bore the mantle of righteousness? And that when we voted for Democrats on November 7, in places like Indiana, Virginia, Montana and Missouri, we were fulfilling the will of our Savior? Maybe it's good and godly that all people have equal rights. That women have a say over their own bodies. That war not be used as an experiment on others by men who've never tried it on themselves. That all people, not just the rich, have the wherewithal to pursue happiness. That people shouldn't be bullied into giving up their freedoms. That power not be considered a goal but a tool.
Lord, forgive me if these are subversive thoughts. I know You're a Republican, and I'm still Your humble servant, but hey, don't be a sore sport. After all, You created the Democrats, not me. All I did was vote.