Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, May 2, 2005.

"You can tell you have created God in your own image when it turns out that he or she hates all the same people you do."

-- Anne Lamott

I've been feeling uncomfortable lately with the Republican Party's ongoing willingness to selectively embrace certain religious ideals for their own political gains. I've been wanting to say something, but couldn't quite find the right words until I found the above quote. I think it should be sent to every public official who has invoked the name of God in the past year, so they might consider a bit more who exactly the God is that they are speaking for. For me the brilliance of the quote is not so much in-your-face accusation that you just might be co-opting God for you own agenda, but the underlying tweak that those who profess a belief in God perhaps shouldn't be enthusiastically hating on people in the first place. (Yes, I know the "he or she" certainly exposes Ms. Lamott as a liberal, so I’m afraid that renders the whole thing unusable.)

What makes me uncomfortable in particular is the notion that God wants certain rules to be changed, such as an end of the Senate filibuster. I, myself, have no firsthand knowledge of God's position on this, and I don't want to belittle those who think they do. I'm just saying that it seems a dangerous precedent to set for altering the nuts-and-bolt rules of how our government functions. The filibuster was created for a reason: as a check to prevent an unfair advantage. Yet sometimes people want to win so badly, they can become, well, irrational.

Soccer is a fairly simple game, but the one rule that consistently throws people is "offsides." There's no need to go into details here -- all you need to know is that its purpose is to prevent one side from keeping offensive players permanently in front their opponent's goal. Or more simply, the offsides rule is a check to prevent an unfair advantage. I was at one of my kids' soccer games where the ref had repeatedly called the opposing team for offsides. A nearby parent was getting aggravated with this. "What are they calling?!" she demanded. "Offsides," another parent offered and explained the rule and its purpose. The first parent waved her hand dismissively and said, "Well they are calling it too much on our team; they should change the rule." And that's where this week's comic came from.

Oh, and because I'm all about fair and balanced: The Democratic Party sometimes strikes me as the type who enjoys a forfeit win with the same sense of accomplishment as a victory after a hard-fought game. Sure, a win is a win, but I often suspect the Democrats of hoping for forfeits. And that's where the aside came from.