Intolerance and an e-mail hoax

Narrow-minded, self-serving, sanctimonious twits of co-workers.

Yesterday I got one of those e-mails from someone in my department, warning us all of the fact that “CBS is going to have to cancel “Touched by an Angel” because it mentions God in the show. I’d print the full text of this preposterous e-mail, but with my luck, someone would copy and paste it and start the hoax afresh.

I gave the person who sent this to me the benefit of the doubt. I wrote back to her explaining:

This is a hoax. If you go to Snopes.com and scroll down to “Touched by an Angel”, they give full details of the history of this hoax. If you don’t have net access, let me know, and I can arrange to have this information e-mailed to you.

An excerpt:

The real RM-2493 had nothing to do with Madalyn Murray O’Hair nor did it have anything to do with banning religious broadcasting. That didn’t stop the above petition from being widely circulated as concerned citizen after concerned citizen signed it, then sent it on to an ever-widening circle. It’s still kicking around to this day despite the real RM-2493 going in front of the FCC in 1974 and being turned down by that body in 1975.

Please let people know not to contact the FCC on this. They’ve been fighting this rumor in some shape or form for 26 years now, and it simply isn’t true.

Did she tell anyone? No, of course not. This morning I get another copy of this from someone else in the company, a woman that I don’t even know. As did every body else in the company with e-mail – she literally sent it to the entire company! Over a thousand people now have this stupid petition in their hands. The copy of the petition I got already had a dozen “signatures” from people in my company affixed to it, so it must have spent all of yesterday circulating about the company before this nimrodette decided that the entire company should have it cc’d to them.

Why don’t people analyze these things before responding? Do they think that if it got sent out to dozens of people it must be true? Why is it that the same people who can throw out junk mail offers for credit cards and can hang up on telemarketers during dinner can’t delete email petitions from their in bin, or at least seriously look at what they are affixing their names to?

Why? Because this mentioned Madalyn O’Hair, and all good Christians know that the athiests are out to get them. It doesn’t matter that the woman was murdered in 1995. It doesn’t matter that virtually nothing in the hoax email was factual. It’s a reflex response – it’s atheist so therefore it must be bad.

I respect the beliefs of those in this company. I would be willing to die to defend their right to hold those beliefs, even though I do not share them. I do this because it is the right thing to do. And yet the Christians I find myself surrounded by time and again fail to live by these precepts. I keep a low profile while at work. I have to, since the same courtesy of mutual respect I extend to others would not be extended to me.

This hoax email is symptomatic of that. Madalyn O’Hair, even after her death, remains a symbol to my co-workers of all that is wrong with the Godless America. I’m not saying I’m necessarily a fan of O’Hair’s. Frankly, I’m not all that fond of many of the tactics she employed. But then, I’m not all that fond of the tactics that many religious groups employ either. But I note that it took only her name in the text to convince people that the petition circulating must be true. Let this be a reminder to me why I have to keep my head down and my beliefs hidden.