The World Around You

I have seldom agreed more with a letter to the editor than I do with this one from Rev. Flanders of Montgomery.

Faithful should leave judging to God

In a letter to the editor on Aug. 25, Rodger Gandy showed an impressive knowledge of Bible verses that tend to back up his view that homosexuality is wrong. However, he says “As far as allowing homosexuals to be a part of the body of the church, the church cannot allow this because …”

Which church is he speaking of? A number of churches do allow homosexuals to be part of their membership, and rightly so.

In my reading of the New Testament, I find verses that, for me, ring truer than any of the others. In Matthew 22: 34-40, the Pharisees come before Jesus and ask him what the most important commandment is. They had seen and heard Jesus reinterpreting Mosaic law, and they wanted him to boil it down into simple terms.

He answered them, “You shall love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind … And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

He did not say, “Love your heterosexual neighbor,” or your white neighbor, or your Christian neighbor. I look forward to the day when good people of all faiths love all their neighbors as themselves, and leave the judging up to God.

Rev. Robert H. Flanders
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
Montgomery

I wonder if Robert is related to Ned Flanders?

Nahhhh, can’t be.

The AEA’s research firm has released its lastest Alabama poll numbers and as there is little doubt that Bush will take Alabama the real race is to see what the margin will be. These latest results could mean that Kerry will pull slightly better numbers than Gore. I would still like to know who these undecided voters are. I would wager, based on national polling that they are people who don’t like what Bush has done, but aren’t yet ready to commit to Kerry. Assuming Kerry does get the vast majority of those undecided voters, he could pull slightly better numbers than Gore had in 2000.

The Alabama Education Association’s Capital Survey Research Center tallied responses from 482 people across the state, finding 54 percent for Bush, 34 percent for Kerry and 9 percent undecided.

“As of last night, this is what it looks like,” the center’s director, Gerald W. Johnson, said Wednesday.

The center uses demographic quotas to mirror established voting trends in Alabama. Where the presidential race is concerned, Alabama voters’ inclinations have changed little since the center’s last phone survey a month ago.

Since undecided voters generally don’t vote for incumbents, Johnson says, and because blacks in Alabama overwhelmingly vote Democratic, the undecided vote will likely benefit Kerry, pushing his numbers in the state slightly higher than Al Gore received in 2000.

In the 2000 presidential election, Bush received 56.5 percent of the vote in Alabama to Gore’s 41.6 percent.

You will notice that Bush has lost only about 2.2% of his support from 2000, which is low when you look at the rest of the nation. Bush’s base is certainly strong in Alabama.

**Crossposted at Polstate.com

Some of the signs at the RNC were apparently made at a unionized shop! Oh the horror!

Three of the signs provided to delegates Tuesday evening by organizers of the Republican National Convention were produced in unionized New York print shops.

The vendor belongs to Amalgamated Lithographers Local No. 1, according to the thumbprint-sized “bug” on the following signs: “4 More Years” in red, white and blue; “W Stands For Women” in orange and blue; and the dark and light blue “People of Compassion.”

The “Arnold!” signs — in support of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — did not indicate who paid for them, and no union emblem was visible.

The Mobile Register asked a group of Alabamians attending the convention about this apparent departure from traditional Republican ideology. “I know,” said state Rep. Gerald Allen of Cottondale, in a flat tone of voice.

Either Gerald Allen is hanging close to the Mobile Register reporter or vice versa, because he is being quoted every day.