I had the opportunity just the other evening to have a real life water cooler moment if you will.  My wife and I along with several other couples got together to break bread.  These folks are our dearest friends, many of them I would consider family.  It may surprise you to learn that I do not adhere to that old adage about never discussing religion or politics… if I did not discuss these things what is there left to debate? Sports? I don’t know, but any way I walked away from that evening surprised, even shocked at some of what I heard.  These are evangelical, educated, professional, registered republicans.  Good people, successful people, people I trust with my families well being.

Topic #1 was Republican Presidential candidates.  My one friend is supporting Marco Rubio, based upon the belief held by many around the nation that Mr. Rubio is the most “electable” candidate.  Not that he is a perfect candidate but that he is the one who will give us the best option to not be stuck with that horrid thing that the dems will be trying to shove down our throats.  Friend number two is supporting The Donald.  Based upon the fact that “he can not be bought” (debatable), and he “is saying the things that everyone is thinking but is afraid to say”.  Full disclosure if I could pull a lever for a candidate today it would be Ted Cruz, but I would also be more than happy to vote for Rubio if that is the option that I am given.  This group of friends came to be because of our faith, we met at our church and try to hold each other accountable to a degree.  Friend two did not want to hear about Donald being a registered democrat in the past.  He did not care that he has and does support some very liberal ideologies.  So I took the conversation back to his faith.  I asked him if he has seen this, when Mr. Trump was asked to quote his favorite verse of the bible.

“Proverbs, the chapter ‘never bend to envy.’ I’ve had that thing all of my life where people are bending to envy.”

When pressed harder his response sounds very democratish (I know that is not a word, but it should be)

“I wouldn’t want to get into it. Because to me, that’s very personal,” he told Bloomberg news last month. “The Bible means a lot to me, but I don’t want to get into specifics.”

Yes, I missed that part of the Bible where Jesus commands us to have such a personal relationship with his word that we would decline to quote it.  NPR may make my point in a simple straightforward way.

That’s right — the candidate currently leading among the most faith-filled voters is a twice-divorced casino mogul, who isn’t an active member of any church, once supported abortion rights, has a history of crass language — and who says he’s never asked God’s forgiveness for any of it. If that sounds like an Onion story, it’s not.

Now I also know I am not to judge the content of Mr. Trumps heart it is not for me to know.  But if you are going to give me the right to vote for the man I think I can at least use his own words to make an informed decision.

Topic #2 This just made me plain sad.  Two of my dearest friends, (one who legally carries a firearm on a regular basis) thought that the AR in AR-15 stood for “Assault Rifle”, and that the AR-15 you or I may buy at our local gun shop was a fully automatic machine gun.  Folks if our base does not know these things we are going to lose the war being waged on our second amendment rights.  Being uninformed leads you to compromise.  Compromising your rights to appease bullies will never ever make us safer.  So please if I have friends that think like this you probably do too.  Like me, you probably assume they are gun carrying, NRA life members, who will go down in a blaze of glory to protect what is right.  Make sure they are!  So share this article from The Blaze..  Short and sweet make sure your friends and family know that an AR-15 sporting rifle is not a demon gun.  It is not hiding in a closet just waiting to murder them… I promise.

Topic #3 Islamic sexual assault.  A commonly held partially true belief in much of our country is that part of what radical Islamists hate about America is our perversion.   They hate how our sexual immorality has led us to become a nation of pornographers.  (Fair enough, no reason to blow us up but hey maybe you make a good point) Regardless we think that since they cover their women from head to toe that they are free from sexual immorality… not so fast.  While discussing this I brought up two very well covered news stories showing the depravity of Islam as well.  First story involves roaming gangs of “refugee” rapists in Germany.  At least 90 sexual assaults in one evening!  No one knew what I was referencing! Ok, maybe that story was too new they just hadn’t had the time to read about it yet.  So I tried this one, one of our soldiers discharged for trying to stop a childs rape.  Nope nothing still,  Afghan men keeping harems of underage boys as sex slaves ,did not even pop up on their radar.

If you are reading this, if you take the time to dig into Red State and other like minded sites everything I just said is old news to you.  But we just may be in the minority folks.  We may never reach accross the aisle and be able to convince a life long dem that they are wrong.  We can focus on the ones who already profess to know the truth.  Who already know why they will not vote democrat.  Lets keep them informed comment, share, discuss this. As always this is an open thread for whatever is on your minds.  Keep it classy Red State.