I am an American....

My heritage is Irish, but I was born here. My parents were born here. My grandparents were born here. I was also born and raised Catholic. I am now on the record.
 
When I vote, I do not vote for someone based on their heritage or their religious beliefs. As I watched the news today, I saw where some supposed Christian preacher called Mitt Romney’s religion a cult. This is obviously a political tactic designed to scare the good Christian voting public.

I am old enough to remember the naysayers loudly warning the public that if John F. Kennedy was elected, the United States would be ruled by the Pope. I have heard some say that if a woman is elected president, the country will be subjected to hormonal swings. I also heard people say that if Obama was elected, the government would be run by everyone from Louis Farrakhan and the NAACP to Islamic Jihadists.
 
I was too young to vote for Kennedy. Since then, I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans for president, depending on what I perceived as the intelligence and agenda of the candidate and with no thought of ethnicity, gender, or religion. When will people put aside their prejudices and try to take a wider, more objective view of the candidates, leaving religion and ethnicity out of the mix and basing their decisions on what makes sense, rather than on their prejudices?

In a related note, it seems that the Westboro Baptist Church planned to demonstrate at the funeral of Steve Jobs. Evidently they felt he was a horrible sinner because he had a “huge platform” but he “gave God no glory and taught sin” to those using his inventions…which of course he did not really invent, according to the Westboro leadership. Kudos to the Jobs family for having a small private service. I saw no news about a demonstration taking place.

Today on CNN, I watched as someone from Syria went on and on about Steve Jobs being Syrian. Yes his father was Syrian. His mother was American and of Swiss-German heritage. But Steve Jobs, like me, was born an American. It doesn’t matter what his heritage is. He was born here. His mother was born here. Millions of Apple computer users and owners of iPads, iPhones, and every other i-gadget on the market don’t care if his father was Syrian. Steve Jobs was an American in every sense of the word.

What I am wondering is, how many of those who don’t give a damn about Steve Jobs’ father being Syrian, still ascribe to the theory that President Obama is not an American because his father was Muslim and he spent some of his childhood in Indonesia? I say, get over it. The President is as American as you, I, or Steve Jobs. He was born here, his mother was born here.
 
To those who still hang on to that ridiculous theory, maybe you should be more worried about Steve Jobs’ parentage. It is quite possible that when all is said and done, Steve Jobs’ influence on America and the world may be more far-reaching than President Obama or any other American president in recent history. 

Let that one sink in and swirl around for a while. I’m sure someone out there will be quick to theorize that our whole culture is going down the drain due to Steve’s inventions, and it is surely all part of a Syrian conspiracy!