We constantly receive email about candidates running for office that claim to be factual, but we don't verify. We just pass them on as if we have. As Christians, are we bearing false witness by keeping the lies going when we forward these emails?
As August edges to an end and we creep towards the Republican and Democratic, my inbox is under assault with political musings and jokes. Some of the content is admittedly funny, while others are downright disgusting. Lately, it's been mostly disgusting lies that I've had to waste time investigating, which is why I've decided to write this article.
I'll state my biases upfront: I consider myself to be a conservative. I have not decided whether or not to sit out this election or to use my ballot to record a write-in candidate.
Now with that out of the way, allow me to outline a case of poor, unchristian behavior being practiced. The Bible tells us not to lie and not to bear false witness. I'm sure God also means for us avoid passing around lies even if we're not the creator of the falsehood, and yet many of us are guilty of passing around the lies when we mindlessly forward emails.
One of my mail friends is utterly and unashamedly convinced beyond all reasonable doubt, that Barak Obama is a Muslim man who is predicted to be the anti-christ the Bible warns us about. I'll call him “Frank” for privacy reasons. He routinely sends me emails that purportedly contain truth “verified by snopes.com”, but I can tell he read the links to verify the information. I do.
This morning, I received yet another tired, sad email from Frank claiming to be “confirmed by snopes” but without a link. The email took the tone of chicken little screaming, “the sky is falling!”, tipping me off not trust the content. Sure enough my instincts were correct as the story was on snopes, but was proved false. What's the story? Obama is not eligible to run for president due to his legal status. It claims that he was born in Hawaii before it was added as a U.S. state, thereby disqualifying him because he is not a native born citizen.
I sent out a correction to this email to the originator, and sent it out to all my friends. One relative sent a note back saying he had seen this, but the RNC would get Obama on another technicality: he has an Indonesian passport. Surprised he hadn't thought about it more, I answered him back that many people hold dual and tri-citizenships, making them eligible to hold multiple passports.
I have a friend I consider to be akin to a “little brother” who holds a Jordanian passport along with a United States passport. I almost married a Muslim man, and through me he would've held a U.S. passport in addition to his Jordanian passport. He was also born in Austria and lived there for several years, which entitles him to hold an Austrian passport. Passport applications depend on a few things: where you were born, what nationalities your parents are, and if you so choose to move to another country and take up residence there.
A few days ago, I was sent what I considered to be a joke from another friend. It claimed that Obama had visited a Native American Indian tribe in upstate New York, and was honored with a plaque that had his Native American Indian inscribed as “Walking Eagle”. The email ends with the explanation of the name to refer to a bird so full of garbage lies, it's too heavy to fly (and yes, I cleaned that up). While I was looking for other information, I stumbled across the origins of this email dating back to John Kerry and the 2004 presidential election cycle. Instead of “Walking Eagle”, his name was “Running Eagle”, with the explanation of his name being the same. It is nothing more than an adaptation, but how many people will forward it, or believe it to be true just because it showed up in their email from “a trusted source/friend/family member” who otherwise has credibility in real life?
Before this, “Frank” had sent me another email about Obama's campaign plane. It seems he was flying on a blah plane before it was all but certain he was going to become the Democratic nominee. As the primaries rolled to an end, his campaign staff unveiled his new private campaign plane's design. It received all sorts of negative attention because it does not show an American flag. It again referred to snopes.com as being verified and true, so I went to snopes and checked it out myself.
Yes, it s true there is no traditional American flag on Obamas plane. There is a graphic “O” design with stripes added in to mimic the flag, but that's about it. As I continued reading the article, I noticed something conveniently omitted: John McCain's plane was also shown, and it had no American flag. Do you hear that statement ever mentioned? Nope.
