When your team loses

Stating that an election day is much more important in the grand scheme of things than a baseball season, is stating an obvious. But being a fan of both baseball and of this great country is similar in that when your team loses in either case, it hurts. There is one major difference here though. There has never been a time when you hope your favorite team loses in baseball. But tonight, it was hoped that the favored party would lose the presidential election. Because it is time for the favored party to get a clue.

From a personal standpoint, this was the thirty-eighth straight election. Like the Game Picks, none have been missed in all those years. This was only the second time that the candidate for president from the favored party was not supported. Why? Because the party has increasingly lost its way. Perhaps such a loss will cause the Republican Party to reshape itself. At least, that was the hope with the vote.

How did we get to this point? How did the party that led the fight against slavery become the party that cannot garner minority support if its life depended on it? And its life did depend on it. How did the party that spearheaded the process that brought down a communist USSR so lose its way? From a party that once cared about the decency of the lives of people around the world, it has become a polarizing party that does just as much to hurt people.

There is a point of admission here. Your host here is born again Christian. But it is again a team that has lost its way. It hurts deeply when the only time Christianity is in the news is when we once again attack a group of people and show our judgmental side. It is this team...my team...that has become the polarizing force within the Republican Party that has caused it to lose touch with the people of this country.

It is this core constituency that polarizes Muslims, women, gays, African-Americans and Hispanics. But, William, isn't it your job as a Christian to work toward a more holy society? Well, yes, it is. But not in the way you would think. The caution is always, "Judge not or you shall be judged." It is my sole responsibility to take care of my own walk through this life and not worry about the choices others are making. The feeling has always been that it is easier to make a cave attractive enough that people want to enter it instead of beating them over the head and dragging them there. The best thing we Christians can do is to be a friend and show love to those around us. If we do that, then more will find what we have found.

But we do not do that. Do we show love when we treat gays like they are abominations? Would Jesus? Do we really believe or know for sure that you cannot be a Christian or saved if you are gay when all evidence points to that being a biological thing that happens in the DNA and not from a choice? And even getting away from that sticky argument, doesn't our favorite patriotic line that says that all men are created equal and deserve the pursuit of happiness?

The same Constitution that allows us this blessed freedom to worship without fear also guarantees equal rights of all citizens of this country.

We cannot continue to be the faith and the party of such moral polarization. Being a Republican is more than just being the moral watchdogs of the country. It was first and foremost a party of economic core beliefs. It is also a party that believes in American strength of military as the best deterrent of enemies that are against us. Those ideas have merit but are lost in the cattle call of moral issues that drown us in a morass of rhetoric.

The Republican Party must put aside its moral agenda. We must leave the abortion issue in the conscious of the people that have to make those choices. Reach out in love to those who are in unwanted pregnancies instead if you wish. The party needs to stop cowing to the moral stance of trying to vilify gays. The party needs to stop vilifying those on public assistance and instead work on ways to get them off the system. The party needs to embrace those who have entered this country illegally but are shown to be good people that work hard in this country and have been here for a period of time.

The Republican Party needs to stop being a hater of certain people and become a party that loves and supports people. The party needs to stop being a party of the rich and the white and the Christian and pushes everyone else away.

The Republican Party lost this presidential election. It should have. It deserved it. Now fix it. Become a party that goes beyond self-interest and tries to solve problems. Work with the president of the United States for the benefit of all instead of working from day one to get him out of office. Find a vision of who we are as a nation and all the people that make up that nation. This Republican is tired of wearing the moniker and is smothered in shame that we have come to this.

President Obama is our president. He deserves our support and our best no matter what party he came from.