America is heading in the wrong direction.

A friend of mine asked me the other day why I write the blog and why I comment so vigorously on social media about current events.

My answer was simple. I see America heading in a dangerous direction.

We are losing our spirit of community. Equality and fair play are notions that are being buried in the name of religious freedom. We are losing our collectiveness – our desire to be One People. We are more bigoted… Warmongering … and most of all – shallow minded. If I don’t agree with you, I am unpatriotic.

And on top of all that, we profess to be this holier than thou Christian nation based on biblical principles, which are down right bullshit. Excuse my French, but someone has to call a spade a spade. Today’s political active right wing evangelical churches are about as Christ-centered as an investment bank.

WWJD?  He would spit on the Christian churches today for their hypocrisy and hatred. He would drive them out of the temple for the excesses and their lack of compassion. (Not to mention their building of huge edifices in his name, which he never asked for.) He would admonish us to feed the hungry, clothes the naked, and house the homeless. But he would be voted down by the extreme right of the Republican party and be branded Anti-American. He would be called a traitor. A liberal. A menace to our society. (He has heard all of this before, so I doubt it would bother him any.)

The neo-conservative attitudes toward minorities, toward the LGBT community, toward veterans, towards Muslims, towards people of color, towards women, towards anyone who doesn’t fit some small-minded mold of what some right-wing, Jesus-fearing think thank says we should be. And the vilest of these attacks comes from America’s pulpits. Well, there and FOX News.

There was even an Arizona Senator who put forth the idea of making it a law for required church attendance on Sundays. Has she not heard of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights?  It drives me crazy. Idiots trying to glue and tape their theology onto the fabric of American Law.

You see, I grew up with a vision of America that said we were the land of the free.  We had liberty. All of us. Not just the Sunday School, Baptized a dozen times, voted republican, country club crowd.  No. Every one living here has those rights and privileges. It was granted to us in our constitution. We didn’t have to be a part of the 1% to lay claim to the American Dream. And we certainly didn't have to join first or second or even third Baptist church to do likewise.

But slowly those rights are eroding under the disguise of 'religious freedom and fairness to all' laws that are nothing more than camouflaged bigotry.

I see a group of people who would divide us and separate us and classify us by our gender or sexual preference and our political views…and in so doing, label us Anti-American.  (I have heard federal law enforcement offices call their President a Traitor.  That is sedition. And they are proud of it. Wear their hatred for a black president like a badge of honor.) That, too is Anti-American.

Let me tell you who is Anti-American. The bigot is Anti-America. The CEO who moves his business off shore to make more “profits” and cost American jobs — he or she is Anti-American. People who vilify the President of the United States for helping deliver health insurance to an entire nation —they are Anti-American. Grown men, wealthy grown men, who vote to cut food stamps from the poor. They are Anti-America, as are their warmongering buddies who inflate the Pentagon budget, even with weapon system the generals and admirals do not want…they are Anti-American. Politicians who promote lies of voter fraud just to pass laws to suppress minorities voting rights…well, they are the lowest from of Anti-Americans.

The state of Indiana and its religious freedom act — it is Anti-American. Arkansas may not be far behind. The TV Evangelist who rails about right-wing politics being sent from Jesus and then asks for donations to a tax-exempt entity…that is Anti-American. (I would have said left wing, too, but I haven’t heard any of those.)

What else is Anti-American?  The Hobby Lobby decision.  The Citizen United decision. The stripping of power from the Voter Rights Act by a slanted Supreme Court. That is Anti-American. (Send your sons and daughter overseas to protect our freedoms, but at home we want to remove those privileges from people who do not look like us— is the sacrifice of lives worth that hypocrisy?) The entire tax code which benefits the ultra wealthy while standing on the shoulders of America’s middle class — that truly is Anti-American.

Fighting wars all over the world, while ignoring our poor and needy at home. That is Anti-American. And when those veterans return home, shunning them and not providing for them — well that may be the most Anti-American thing I’ve seen.

Polarizing of our people through lies and innuendo by manipulated media and by loud-mouth radio bullies who refuse to listen to the other side — that is Anti-American.  And believing that your political view is the ONLY way we can go — that, too is Anti-American.

It used to be you and I could disagree about issues.  And we’d find a common ground. We could debate them openly and with conviction. Now everything and everyone is vilified if they don’t agree with your point of view.

So you see, I have a lot of fuel to fire my fight. A lot of issues yet to tackle. I am but one small voice in a den of noise and confusion, but I am trying to point out the hypocrisies, the lies and the fallacies of the direction I see America headed.

I do it because I love this country.  More than anything in the world, I love our freedoms. And I don’t want anyone – from without or from within – to do anything to destroy those freedoms.

To be sure it is hard at times. Some of the people I have to defend make my skin crawl. It is like an ACLU attorney I know told me, “I have to defend garbage everyday, because that garbage might be me tomorrow to someone else.”

And that may be the most American thing I’ve heard anyone say in a long time.