PASTOR HAGEE AND REVEREND WRIGHT -- PRAY OR VOTE?

There are some things I won't do, but this is no longer one of them.

As a humorist, I'm bound by a certain credo that forbids me from engaging in two subjects: religion and politics. With only the rare exception, I've stayed true to this self-imposed principle, leaving sermons and social sciences to preachers, pols, and the occasional Andy Borowitz.

I do this because no one wants their laughmaster to moralize, and you can't get a decent ethical fulmination off the ground without declaring what you think is Reverend Wright or wrong. In humor, anything goes, except when you're talking elections and resurrections. Then, everything is best left gone.

Dave Barry wrote: "Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. This is also true of religion, although you will not find me saying so in print."

Until now. Sorry, Uncle Dave.

To me, waxing witty has nothing to do with a scrupulous dilemma, but I also agree with W. Somerset Maugham's "something irresistibly funny in our most heartfelt woes." This is why, within these confines, I've tried to keep my chocolate gospel and peanut butter politics from melding inside my humor column candy bars.

I'll blame this departure on syndicated columnist Margaret Carlson's recent column: "Obama Finds Two Wrights Make A Wrong." She said that Senator Obama's pastor "got lost in the cathedral of his own ego." Well, that caused my Reese's Peanut Butter Cups of conviction to runneth over, and here we are:

I don't want my minister mixing the Bill of Rights in with his bill of wrongs, and I won't abide my senator claiming that God told him (or her) to vote YES on Gas Tax Holiday and Windfall Profits Tax legislation. Last time I checked, I think this makes me an American.

When the Landfill Expansion Bill comes up for a vote, I want my elected representative mindful of the leachate concentrations at the dump, not looking for signs of Lourdes water pollutants at the Grotto of Massabielle. If I'm not mistaken, I think this makes me a patriot.

If my Congressman (or woman) wants to claim that he or she is AGAINST a same-sex marriage bill because of a visitation from heralding angels during an all-night filibuster, then let's defrock their vote when the roll is called up in yonder chamber and rescind their collection plate campaign payolas.

If preachers are out there stumpin' for or against this or that political candidate, substituting offings for offerings and getting paid for it, then out with the tax-exempt status. Punditry ain't pulpitry, and if they're going to use God as a Majority Whip, then welcome to the Internal Revenue Service. I guarantee that having to put their money where their manna is will quickly turn evangelists out of the Congressional Record and back to the Scriptures.

If they're going to call Catholicism "The Great Whore," and condemn a hurricane-stricken community to a fiery damnation because of an alternate lifestyle, or if they "God-Damn" America because they confuse inspiration with expiration, then they are not "pastors." They are not "men of God." They're rabble-rousing egoists in love with their own voices, and their churches can file tax returns with the rest of us.

Right about here, I'm duty-bound to apologize to the dedicated readers of this column, who came here seeking a light-hearted look at life's goofy fodder, my usual venue.

Yes, I'm sure you all would've preferred we talk about Nita Sureka, the Virginia woman who crashed her car into the Department of Motor Vehicles building when she took her driver's test (it's not known if she'd suffered a Divine Intervention).

Or, I'd have better-served this column's consumers by reporting how the U.S. Humane Society has estimated that there are 15,000 of us out there with "privately-owned primates" (Evolutionists or Creationists? Care to wager?).

Or, we might've mixed this serious business with joyful mischief by discussing the homespun philosophy of Edmund Orian, who built his house on lava rocks near Hawaii's Mt. Kilauea. He calls his home "heaven on earth," and, without declaring his Presidential candidate preference, claims that "living near a volcano keeps you aware that God is in control. If the lava comes, we can always move."

Wish we could say the same about politics.

Copyright 2008 B. Elwin Sherman. All rights reserved.