Congratulations, Senator Obama!

Good news for Senator Barack Obama: James Dobson finds your understanding of the Bible objectionable. Thank God! That's precisely why I will be voting for you in November.
Dobson is an interesting character. He made his name, and his early money, dispensing advice on how to raise your kids. It was, as far as I could tell, basic common sense stuff. But with the terrible lack of common sense in my generational colleagues, Dobson made out pretty well peddling his wares. Even if some of it was based on some weak/poor/flaky theology.
Then at some point, Dobson decided that it wasn't enough to be the fundamentalist Dr. Spock; he wanted to be Jerry Falwell. No accounting for taste or dreams, I guess. Dobson got political. Claimed credit for stuff he had very little to do with, and raised money based on his newfound "effectiveness." And in the process, he found out where the big bucks are.
So, now, Dobson has a problem with Obama's biblical interpretation.
Once, while on the staff of our retirement homes, I was involved in an intervention with a resident. The man in question, then in his late 80's, had a penchant for whacking members of our staff with his cane. Female members of our staff. African-American female members of our staff. I was brought in on the second conversation with the man. Since he'd already been warned once, this discussion was a little more direct. He was facing the loss of his residence with another incident. He didn't care. He told my dear friend, Mary Lee Moore, and me that if he could just call his nephew, he'd come up from Alabama and explain "all this race stuff" to us. He claimed his nephew was the Grand Dragon of Alabama. I had watched Mary Lee suffer many indignities in her office. Most from residents. Some from alleged superiors in the organization. She never let anyone see how much the epithets and insults hurt. She was better than all of them. That strong, gracious African-American woman would not grant them power over her life and identity. I wasn't that noble. I told the old man that if he wasn't going to be abiding by the rules as he had agreed to them when he signed his lease and moved in that I would be glad to go up and move him and his stuff to the curb right then. He stood up, raised his cane and took two steps toward me. I jumped up, and in one of my less than charitable moments, told him he better get a good shot in, because he wouldn't get another. Bravery from a 32 year old to a man almost 90...Priceless!
He thought better of his course of action, and said, "Well, you ain't much preacher!" I thanked him. He looked confused. He said that it wasn't a compliment. I said it was. He asked, "How do you figure?" I told him that since I wouldn't willingly be what was required for him to think well of me, I was grateful he acknowledged that I didn't meet his expectations.
So with Obama. I am glad that my party's nominee-to-be is not what James Dobson would want him to be, to find him acceptable in his faith or policies. Sometimes being declared unacceptable is the highest praise a Dobson can offer!