God doesn’t want a woman to lead America (he’s fine with women leading other countries, though—they aren’t as important as ours)…

If you’re expecting to read an explanation about why I believe the above, you’ve come to the wrong place. I’m about to launch into a tirade about why this title is so ridiculous…
So I guess I’ve suspected it for a long time—well, at least since Hillary Clinton began her campaign. But it’s one thing to suspect something, and quite another to hear that suspicion confirmed on NPR’s Morning Edition. A story was being aired about the upcoming Texas primary; people were asked whom they were voting for and why. And wouldn’t you know that some evangelical Christians would be a part of those being questioned! One woman said that although she was impressed with Hillary Clinton and how far she had come, she could not vote for a woman to be president. She gave her Christian beliefs as the reason for this decision, and pointed out that the Bible instructs women to submit to men. Her pastor echoed this sentiment, and then explained why he’d be casting his vote for Huckabee. Apparently God has no opinion on people of color, as Obama did not seem to be a contender to them at all.
Well, this is America, and I’m fine with people believing what they want. I’m fine with them setting up their family structure in a way that suits their beliefs. But something seems wrong when people are willing to subject others to their belief systems when they know that not all subscribe to that system. It seems fundamentally un-American—asking those to give up the freedom to live up to their potential simply because some don’t find that freedom to be consistent with their particular interpretation of Scripture. Interestingly, I never got the idea that God demanded submission to men in any context other than family and religious life—private realms that should really be apart from the greater public life. Of course, I don’t think God demanded submission at all—I think submission as we see it is largely misunderstood, abused, and most of all, culturally-bound. For those fans of Paul out there, the Bible even says something about equality in the church as a whole—Paul wrote that “in Christ, there is no difference between Jew and Greek, slave and free person, male and female…” (Galatians 3:28). If anything, Paul’s letter calls for a radical equality far superior to that of the world’s version of equality—hardly a call to submission and the forgoing of opportunities to live up to one’s potential.
What is really sad to me is that women buy into this idea. But really, how ludicrous is it? Would God really choose for one of his children to be inferior to the other? For one child, as Stacy Eldridge likes to note, to be a “helper”, and the other to be helped, but never with reciprocation? Does the God of equality seem to line up with the sexist God of some people’s Bibles? I didn’t choose to have the “wrong” body parts—why should I sacrifice what my mind and gifts are capable of simply because of that physical difference? It seems so shortsighted, really, to think that God would have genitalia determine who shall do what in non-reproduction terms.
Finally, I would like to reiterate that I believe in the right of folks to worship and live how they will. And when it comes to voting, I vote in a way that maximizes opportunity and equality for all (regardless of my religious beliefs) and not in a way that is strictly consistent with my faith. But, I do look upon the daughters of those Texas voters quoted above with sadness. They will be taught that their gender—not disabilities, economic disadvantages, or the like—their gender is what limits them in life. How sad for those girls—and ours.