My dad sent this e-mail to every member of our extended family last week.  Usually, I delete his Religious Right e-mails before opening them, but he tricked me with this one by titling it “Christmas Shopping”:

Since the CEO doesn’t believe in acknowledging the reason for the Chrismas [sic] season, we will not be shopping at the GAP, Old Navy or Banana Republic stores.
When you acknowledge Christ and Christmas, maybe we will come back.
{our family name}

Sooo…since GAP Inc. realized it’s much more profitable not to pander exclusively to Christians, you won’t be doing your Christmas shopping there.

{pregnant pause.}

The irony here runs even deeper than you think.  He sent out an e-mail in mid-October demanding our Christmas lists (a yearly tradition), threatening that if I didn’t send one, I would be getting survival gear:  bottled water, a transistor radio, and canned food.  I could not make this up if I wanted to.

Also, as Gigi pointed out when I forwarded this to her, he didn’t even spell Christmas correctly.

I’m really tired of my dad’s Moral Majority bullshit.  I don’t share his definition of morality, and haven’t considered myself a Christian for several years.  It would be such a relief to wash my hands of him. But the hurt that would cause my mother is incalculable; I could never do that to her.

Instead, I am just doing my best to limit my interactions with him.  His e-mails now go straight to trash, and I won’t be going home for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, or ever again for that matter.  When I do have to see him, I maintain respectful silence and keep in mind that this is the man who gave me life, and I am as susceptible to his faults as he is. I may have shaken the label of “Christian” but “Honor thy father and thy mother” is one of those things I just can’t forget.

Here’s the GAP ad that prompted my father’s display of moral superiority, if you haven’t seen it:

cartoon by Richard Crowson