Some people tell me I shouldn’t get so worked up about what the federal government’s up to. After all, most of that stuff doesn’t really matter in our everyday lives. Hmm…

I lost my wallet last year. Luckily, I only kept a few things in it – frequent shopper cards, a little cash, pictures of my kids. Unfortunately, I also had my and my baby girl’s Social Security cards in it.  Since I don’t often need our cards, though, I didn’t worry too much about it.

Then my husband decided to refinance our house, and because of the Patriot Act, I have to show my Social Security card to close on the refi.

So I went to my “local” Social Security office. It’s a 30-minute drive to a neighborhood that I wouldn’t exactly call safe. I had to have my kids with me since the office closes at 4pm. I knew right away it’d be a disaster. There were big signs posted on the front door – no food, no cell phones, no guns. So I left the McDonald’s Happy Meals I had gotten to keep my children quiet in the car; I turned off my cell phone, and I tried to reassure my 6-year-old that he need not worry about guns. (He saw the picture on the door and freaked out a bit.)

Once inside, things just got worse. There were about 60 people packed into a 200-square-foot room. I took a number – A31 – and we sat down. That’s when I noticed yet another sign: Keep your children quiet and under control so we can conduct business privately and without interruption. Right. I’ll explain that to my 2-year-old who is already running around checking things out.

I started filling out my application only to discover that I needed my parents’ Social Security numbers. I have no idea what those are, and my parents are on vacation in the Cascades. Besides I can’t use my cell phone to try to get hold of them anyway, remember?

After ten minutes, the irritable clerk finally called a number – A26. Hurray, there were only five people in front of us. Another fifteen minutes and they called A27. By now, my son is whining about the wait and bouncing up and down in his chair, annoying the very large man next to him with lots of rather graphic tattoos and a bolt in his nose. I was trying to keep my daughter entertained, but she was not having it.  She kept wiggling out of my lap and taking off. Every time I would catch her, she’d shriek, and I’d get dirty looks from the clerk. So after waiting about thirty minutes, I gave up.

I bid farewell to the pictures of George W. and Dick Cheney that were looming over our chairs and walked out the door. I heard them call A28 just before the door swung shut. I’ll have to find a time to go back after we return from vacation and before we close on our mortgage. Needless to say, I won’t be taking the kids.

Who says federal government doesn’t affect our daily lives? It just helped ruin a day for me.

What do conservatives have against gays and lesbians? Really? What has a gay man or homosexual woman ever done to them to deserve the uproar that surrounds them? I know a lot of gay men and a few lesbians, and I have to tell you, they really are not scary. Most of my friends and family are, however, hetero and conservative. This is what they tell me:

1. Homosexuals choose to be homosexual.
2. Homosexuals are dangerous freaks who will turn decent heterosexuals to the dark side if we allow them to get close to us.
3. Homosexuals are perverts and deviants out to molest and/or rape our children.
4. Homosexuals, unlike heterosexuals, parade their sexuality and try to get special rights because of it.
5. Homosexuality is condemned by the Bible.
6. Homosexuals should just be celibate rather than commit sin by sleeping with same-sex partners.

So let me look at these one by one.

The first two points really fascinate me. The idea that you can choose your sexuality is bizarre. I can no more choose to be a lesbian than I can choose to sprout horns out my head. I like men. It’s not a choice I made; I’ve just never been attracted to women in a sexual way, and I cannot imagine suddenly choosing to, even if a gorgeous lesbian came up to me and begged me to be her girlfriend. I have several gay and lesbian friends. Their homosexuality has not rubbed off on me. The notion that accepting them into my society will somehow endanger my heterosexuality is ludicrous. To anyone that spouts such silliness, I must ask, “Is your heterosexuality so tenuous that you cannot resist the lure of a gay person in your near vicinity?”

Point number three begs the question, “Are heterosexuals exempt from perversion and sexual deviance?” On the contrary, most of the truly horrific sexual criminals - Marquis de Sade, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy - were quite straight. Two of my gay male friends were molested as children by married men who were supposedly heterosexual. I don’t have any statistics on it, but I’d be willing to bet that heterosexuals are just as likely, if not more so, to be criminally deviant as homosexuals.

I hear number four quite a bit from my conservative friends: “They chose to be gay, and now they want special rights? I don’t go around asking for special privileges because I’m straight!” Nope, because you don’t have to. Heterosexuals don’t have to beg for equality or decent treatment. We get it automatically. We can marry whom we want in a church with all our friends and even get tax breaks and benefits. We can wear our wedding rings proudly and not worry about getting beaten up for being married to someone we love. As far as homosexuals parading their sexuality, heterosexuals do it all the time. Turn on the TV. Go to a popular movie. Look at a billboard or a mainstream magazine. You’ll see scantily clad women and men kissing, groping and writhing all over one another. Heaven forbid we should see a gay couple now and then.

Point five is an intriguing one. People often point to verses in Leviticus or in the writings of Paul as condemning homosexuality. I’m not a biblical scholar, so I can’t dispute the point definitively. I am a language expert, though, and I know that translating the Bible is like playing the child’s game of telephone. What starts out as God’s word, goes through the initial writer, then a translator, then another translator, then another and another. As it is converted from language to language, modified from man to man, and evolved from age to age, the meaning is inevitably altered. No one can say for certain what the terms occasionally translated as “homosexual” actually meant in the original language. Plus, a Christian knows that the Old Testament was revised by Jesus. He overturned many of the old laws. Since he never mentions homosexuality, can we not assume he was disregarding the old Jewish traditions against it?

There really is no hierarchy of sin. According to Jesus, all sins are equal. If homosexuality is a sin, it is no worse than lying, stealing or cheating. Those sins are redeemed by Christ. Homosexuality would be too. Of course, some people argue that if you must be gay, you should just be celibate as Paul suggested. If celibacy is the proper way to avoid the sin of homosexual sex, than it must also be the proper way to avoid the sin of sex with someone other than your first partner. After all, Jesus specifically told us to avoid divorce because remarriage is actually adultery; therefore, all divorcees should just be celibate too. Hmm…

The point is that gay people deserve respect and consideration like anyone else. No one has the right to discriminate against them or be unkind to them just because they are gay. If homosexuality is a sin, it’s not up to us to punish those who practice it. As Jesus said, “Let those among you without sin cast the first stone.” Let’s just let God handle it, shall we?

The other day, Senator John McCain was a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The interview was remarkable for a couple reasons, not the least of which was the dynamic between Stewart and McCain. Although they disagree on most issues, they seem to have a genuine respect and admiration for each other’s work that shines through even when they’re having heated discussions.

For me, McCain is a problematic figure. I have admired him for years. When he was running for president, I probably would have voted for him. His recent support for the Iraq War, however, has left me scratching my head. I don’t seem to be the only one either.

One of the most telling moments of his Daily Show appearance occurred when Stewart challenged the Bush administration’s definition of “supporting our troops.” McCain said that he had talked to many soldiers who believe in the president and what they’re doing in Iraq. Even before the Stewart’s young audience started booing, I was frowning and shaking my head at the television. “What soldiers is he talking to?” I wondered.

I teach college, and many of my students are in the armed forces. Last semester, I had a total of 14 former and/or active military personnel IN ONE CLASS! This semester, I had two students who had to drop my class because they were called up for active duty - again. One of them brought me a newspaper article last week. He pointed to a headline that said Bush was going to veto Congress’s Iraq War budget/timeline bill. “How many votes does it take to override a veto?” he asked. “I really don’t want to go back over there.”

Evidently, Senator McCain isn’t hearing the same things from soldiers that I am. Is he lying? No, I don’t think so. He seems like a very good man. He is a decorated war veteran himself, a former POW. I cannot imagine any decent man with such horrific war experiences lying about his fellow soldiers’ feelings.

So last night, I was watching President Bush addressing soldiers at US Central Command Headquarters in Florida just a few hours before he was to veto the Congress bill. The military personnel were all standing around their Commander-in-Chief, smiling and shaking his hand. Then it hit me.

Catherine the Great.

According to legend, Russian empress Catherine the Great went on a tour of her country in the 18^th century. One of her favorite courtiers, Potemkin, ran ahead of Catherine’s entourage, “cleaning up” the rundown villages and even building facades over the more dilapidated buildings. When Catherine came through, she found scrubbed, smiling serfs and quaint, country cottages. She had no idea of the squalid misery in which her people lived because the people around her made sure she never saw it.

I believe something similar is happening to John McCain, George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney and many other members of the conservative elite. Whenever these folks walk into a military installation, they get the Potemkin Village effect. All their advisors and peons have run ahead to make sure only the good little soldiers with their nodding heads and smiling faces get to meet the big honcho who has come to visit.

I’m not blaming the soldiers, of course. I’m as vehemently opposed to most of President Bush’s policies as anyone I know. If I got the change to meet him, though, would I walk up and start telling him everything he was doing to bring down our nation? Uh, no. First, I’d probably get a full-body tackle from any number of Secret Service agents. Second, I get star-struck and tongue-tied around the bass player for Duran Duran. Can you imagine how I’d get around the leader of the free world? Even if he is one of my least favorite people on the planet?

Plus, soldiers are immersed in military culture. To survive in combat, they have to be trained a certain way, and that includes following orders in the chain of command. If their commanding officer tells them to shut up and smile at the nice senator, that is what they have to do. If their Commander-in-Chief walks in, they are not going to tell him to drop dead unless they want an immediate ticket to a court martial.

So who is to blame for the misinformation, the misleading experiences being fed to our nation’s leaders about how our soldiers feel about the Iraq War? We certainly can’t blame our folks in uniform. We can’t really blame the leaders themselves. They can really only believe what they see and hear. Still, they are seeing and hearing what they want to see and hear. They have made their opinions so unquestionable as to make it impossible for anyone to tell them otherwise.

All in all, I wish Senator John McCain had been at my side yesterday. “How many votes does it take to override a veto?” And I always thought that U.S. government stuff I learned in high school would never really make much difference to me.

When I was a little girl, I saw a cartoon based on Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki-tikki-tavi, the mongoose hero of The Jungle Book who defeated evil cobras. I didn’t like the cartoon, primarily because the villainous snakes terrified me; therefore, I watched it only once. One line, however, has stuck with me for thirty years. One of the cobras hisses to the human child it is threatening, “If you move, I will strike. If you don’t move, I will strike.” Scary, even now.

Maybe it is especially scary now.

For the past six years, our political, military and even religious leaders have been using the threat of another 9/11-like terrorist attack to promote their decisions. If we don’t invade Iraq, we’ll be attacked. If we don’t pass the Patriot Act, we’ll be attacked. If we don’t allow our phone conversations to be monitored, we’ll be attacked. If we leave Iraq, we’ll be attacked. If we don’t ban gay marriage, we’ll be attacked.

Now, Rudy Giuliani, hero of 9/11, has warned us: if we elect a Democrat to the Presidency, we’ll be attacked.

Please forgive me for my profanity, but that is bullshit. (Sometimes the most appropriate word happens to be a profane one.)

Here is what I must say to anyone who gives me the line again: it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. Perhaps it sounds like a pessimistic thing to say. I certainly don’t like saying it, but I do believe it. Terrorists don’t care much about big-idea politics; I doubt many of them have any better understanding of the differences between Democrats and Republicans than President Bush has of the differences between Shi’ites and Sunnis. We can pass any law we want, or not pass it. We can monitor phone conversations or not. Leave Iraq or stay. Ban gay marriage or sponsor a cross-country gay pride parade. Doesn’t matter. Not at all.

These terrorists are like the horrifying snakes that gave me nightmares as a little girl. If they get the opportunity, they will strike. Period.

Most people don’t want to face the idea that there are things we cannot predict, cannot control, and cannot prevent. Most people want to cling to the idea that every thing that happens, happens for a reason; therefore, if we just make the right decisions, we can ensure that the right things happen. If you follow that impossible line of thinking, (as Voltaire did superbly in Candide – great book, you should check it out if you haven’t already!) then every baby whose father dies in the Iraq War, deserves to be fatherless. Every child born with cystic fibrosis deserves their pain. Every mother who loses a son or daughter to a drunk driver, deserves their tragedy. They made the wrong decisions.

These are hateful ideas. They necessitate the existence of an angry and unforgiving God who cruelly punishes every tiny transgression. They allow us to wallow in paranoia, fear and fury. They force us to walk on eggshells, second-guess our every move and sift through our own pasts to determine what we have done to deserve our fates.

Sadly, for most people, hate, fear, and anger come easy. The terrorists certainly know that. They feed on it.

Unlike President Bush, Dick Cheney, Rudy Giuliani and the many evangelicals running around screaming about terrorist threats and divine punishments, liberal Christians realize that God’s plan is unknowable. He doesn’t say, “Oh, Joe used my name in vain today; I’m going to give him cancer.” We also accept that true evil is not something we can prevent. It is; it always has been; it will be until the end.

So again, I say, it doesn’t matter. Stay in Iraq or get out. Elect a Democrat or a Republican or even an independent. It does not matter to the terrorists, folks. If we move, they will strike. If we don’t move, they will strike.

In the six and a half years that conservatives dominated our government, I have endured a lot of name-calling. Not directly, but constantly. And not just by politicians like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney or pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. But by people who profess to care about me. They send me e-mails and articles that have one basic message: if you’re not supporting the Iraq war, you’re an anti-American, atheist, pro-terrorist moron who is against our military and has no right to live in this country.

So let me explain my position, and perhaps people will think twice before calling me names.

I’m not anti-American. On the contrary, I love my country very much. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother speaking up about what I see as a grave and devastating mistake our government has made. I’d just go on with my life, eating at McDonald’s, shopping at Wal-Mart, watching American Idol without giving my nation’s future a second thought.

I’m not an atheist. I’m a Christian. As a Christian, I try to follow the teachings of Jesus, such as “turn the other cheek,” “love thy neighbor,” and “blessed are the peacemakers.” Hmm, no mention of “get revenge,” “hate anyone who doesn’t believe the way you do,” or “bomb the s$@* out of your enemies.”

I’m not pro-terrorist. I am just as angry as any pro-war conservative that these people blew up our World Trade Center and murdered thousands of our innocent citizens. Relying on my Christian faith, I searched my heart to find forgiveness for the terrorists. It is not easy. But I also realize that attacking their lands will not defeat them; it will perpetuate their hatred. Like cutting the head off a hydra, we are multiplying the terrorists for our children to fight later.

I’m not a moron. If high test scores, good grades and multiple college degrees can be considered proof, I am well-educated and intelligent. I have given much more thought to this whole situation than most pro-war folks I’ve spoken with who seem capable only of repeating what they hear on Fox News. I have listened to multiple perspectives; I have watched broadcasts by the opposing side with an open mind and seriously considered the possibility that I may be wrong. Only a moron believes he is infallible.

I’m not against our military. As a teacher, I have many students and former students who have served or are serving in our armed forces, and I admire their courage and dedication to our country. I have contributed to care packages that our university sent to the troops. I have e-mailed a former student who is now on his way to Iraq to tell him my prayers are with him. I love our soldiers, and I hate to see them put in harm’s way for a lost cause.

I have a right to live in the country of my birth. I have a right to free speech. The right to criticize the government helps keep this country great. Just ask the Cubans or the Chinese or the North Koreans. Our troops are defending our rights, so denying them to anyone seems far more anti-American than disagreeing with a temporary government’s policy.

I’m not in the minority. While there are pockets of strong support for this war, the majority of our nation’s people has realized that the war was a mistake. And the number approval ratings for both the war and this president are dropping steadily as more and more U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians die, and no progress is made toward democracy and peace.

So please consider carefully the next time you decide to forward an angry, spiteful, pro-war e-mail. Name-calling is not an effective way to prove your point. Unless you’re on a playground.