Political Passion

My neighbor has a sign hanging off his balcony that reads "Sarah Palin" only the graphic in the background is one that you would see on trucker mud flaps (I've provided a picture here...) This infuriates me!

I was driving home with Jonny in the car when I first saw it. I stopped at my neighbor's house, got out of my car, pulled out my pocket knife key-chain and had every intention of ripping down the sign. I was furious!

I stopped when I heard Jonny's sweet little voice say, "Mommy, why are you getting out of the car?" (Louder) "Mommy, why are you going up on our neighbor's front porch?" (Screaming) "Mommy, why are you cutting down that guy's sign?" At that point it dawned on me that stealing someones sign (no matter how inappropriate I thought the sign was) would simply not be a good example for my son. Never mind the fact that one of the best parts of being in America is the protection of Free Speech.

I got back in the car and explained to Jonny that our neighbor's sign made me feel angry. I told him that women all over the country have been working hard to fight for the opportunity to be viewed as professionals and intellectuals... and that Sarah Palin's opportunity to run for Vice President was a great stride (my best friend Jane Ellis reminds me that Sarah Palin is not the first woman who has had the opportunity to run for VP, but I wasn't interested in politics last round...) So, for our neighbor to post a home-made sign that depicted Palin as a sexy silhouette just burned me up inside. Jonny just looked at me and said, "Ok mom. Can we go to McDonald's?" Men, hrmpf!

I decided to write a letter. I wrote a letter telling my neighbor that I didn't care if he was voting for Sarah Palin or not, the sign he made was inappropriate and that women like me who are trying to get beyond their sex appeal in the work force would find the sign damaging. I asked him to call me so we could talk about.

He called me and told me that he was a libertarian and that Sarah Palin was the closest candidate to Ron Paul and that he fully supported she and McCain. Never mind the fact that I do not support the McCain/Palin ticket, I told him that it wasn't the text that was inappropriate on his front porch, it was the sexy symbol. He disagreed with me and said that the symbol was his creative expression, one that he designed to catch people's eye in order to rally support for the McCain/Palin ticket.

We hung up on friendly terms (I had about 4 days to cool off before our conversation... and I didn't tell him that I was on his front porch with a pocket knife ready to cut the sign down...) We agreed to disagree about his creative expression and that was the end of it.

I'm not sure if Jesus would have written this guy a letter. I know Jesus probably wouldn't have ripped his sign down.... I wonder what Jesus would have done. Maybe He would have just gone to McDonald's with Jonny.