The Silver Lining on the Romney Campaign

I was no great fan of Mitt Romney’s, as I think I’ve already made quite clear.  I didn’t like him.  I didn’t vote for him.  I’m glad he lost.

However, as much fun  as it has been to watch people dance around the post-election bonfire of Sheldon Adelson’s money, I actually have something good to say about Romney’s abortive attempt at the White House.  There was something about his candidacy specifically that gives me a little hope that America is getting a little bit better.  (Full disclosure: this post started out as a kernel of thought when I considered what nice thing I might have to say in the event of an actual Romney win.)

I have written before about being brought up in a fundamentalist evangelical church.  While I have no enmity toward the individual people I knew in that church (who, almost to a man or woman, were generous, goodhearted and kind), I have little good to say about it and its ilk as a whole.  I reject the vast majority of its theology, and consider its influence in American politics corrosive and pernicious.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It wasn’t just the gays that I was taught to despise and fear.  Those people saw Satan everywhere.  I meaneverywhere.  I was taught that the national forest near my hometown was crawling with satanists ready to murder me in gruesome ritual sacrifice.  (Really.)  I was taught that the New Age movement was merely repackaged devil-worship.  (Makes you listen to Enya in a whole new way, I’ll bet.)  I was taught to see the handiwork of Beelzebub in movies and books and toys.

Satan was everywhere.

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