nolawitch58 | Chain mail from some flounder?

Before I launch into my diatribe, let me say that I'm loving the current seasonal LJ banner. The witch flying across the full moon gives me such warm fuzzies.

A well-meaning woman who used to be in my writers' group sends me all kinds of the usual nutsoid chain mail. For a long time, all I did was look at the FWD or FW in the subject line and delete it. Then one day I got the glurgiest uber patriotic crap that follows:

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

I was asked to send this on if I agree or delete if I don't.

It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a problem in having "In God We Trust" on our money and having "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I believe it's time we stand up for what we believe!

If you agree, pass this on, if not delete.

Believe me, that doesn't do it justice. There were some awful animated gifs and star spangled cliches and of course, the font had to be really big so that the really small minds could understand it. Well, if you know me, you know that torqued my gears something fierce. I was getting sick of clearing that crap out of the inbox all the time, so I thought "what the hell" and clicked Reply All. What follows is my reply to every other soul who got that email from her.

Believe in your god if you will, but I trust in the Constitution more. The Constitution which separates church and state will protect us better collectively than any religion. There is nothing in American law which condemns me to death, but there is a sentence in the Bible that seemingly condones killing me. Charming...not!

The secular will protect the sacred better than the sacred would ever protect the secular. What a damned shame so many think their all-powerful deity has to be foisted upon the uninterested. Doesn't say much for either your deity or your religion.

Susan R. Kagan
Wiccan American

Of course, I got a reply to that: "Thank you. I was beginning to think I was the only one." That was from the woman's daughter. She might be kinda ditzy personally, but she raised at least one kid without cranial-rectal inversion.

Since then, I continue to get this sort of chain mail. Most of it is the dreary, garden variety "if you don't forward this horseshit about some stupid fucking angels, you'll have bad luck; but if you do, you'll win the lottery." Occasionally, and I expect more often in the coming year, there will be idiotic political commentaries that make me want to slap people. I will continue to click Reply All and vent until that crap dries up and blows away from my inbox forever.