Sunday Musings -- on Politics and Prejudice

One day last week,  I said something really stupid.  (Well, I probably said several stupid things, but one sticks out and that's the one I'm going to tell you about.)  In training at my new job, I spend every single minute of every single day sitting with the only other trainee.  We aren't having in-depth conversations, but we've gotten friendlier as the training has progressed, and have laughed and made casual conversation pretty easily.  A couple of times current events have been mentioned in passing, and we've very superficially talked about some of the recent Repubican debates.

During one such conversation, I said, sort of offhand, "I assume you're a Democrat, right?"

He looked SUPER puzzled, and said, "No.  Why?"

Oops.  Foot.  In.  Mouth.

Now, I will say that there were some legitimate reasons for me to assume his political leanings were similar to mine.  For instance, he had mentioned that his father is in an appointed governmental position, and our state government is, at least technically, Democrat-run.

But the honest truth is, I assumed he was a Democrat because I like him, and found him to be friendly and easy to get along with.  That's about it.  It didn't occur to me that he could be those things, and also be a Republican.

In my awesome Sunday School class, we are reading and discussing a great book by Carlton Pearson, called The Gospel of Inclusion.  In it, he discusses why he doesn't believe in Hell, and why he does believe that everyone -- every single person -- is already "saved."  I love that while reading this book, I can spend a lot of time nodding and agreeing with his ideas.  Does God love people of all religions?  Yep!  All races?  Yep!  All sexual orientations? Yep!  All political affiliations?  Ye -- wait, what?

I guess for all my protestations that I am super inclusive and accepting, I have my own areas in which I'm not very accepting at all.  And there's not really a good excuse for that.  It's something I know I need to work on.  Truthfully, I need to work on WANTING to work on it.

So that's my Sunday confession.

Geez.  I feel like I need to go hug a Republican or something.