Oops, I did it again ...

Ah, the conundrum of e-mail forwards, especially these days.

After weeks of getting red-neck Republican anti-Democrat e-mail forwards from one friend (I didn't realize anyone I knew was rich enough to be a Republican?!), I got a forward from another dear friend yesterday from CatholicVote.com and that, apparently, was the tipping point.

I love this gal; and one of the many things I've admired about her for years is the way she lives her faith and walks the walk.  She's one of the best "advertisements" for Christianity going, but she never pushes what she believes on other people.  Which is why I suppose it was unfortunate that I chose this email to reply to -- and of course, when I have something to say, I always hit "reply all" ...

So now her brother is most decidedly vexed with me and I have to decide whether to continue the debate of issues with him via email, not reply at all, try to point out that "see, when you feel your deeply held beliefs are under attack, you also feel compelled to fire off an email," or just write him a pleasant e-mail focusing on what a peach his sister is.

I'm leaning toward the latter.

But I'm wondering: some of these forwards (in particular ones I used to get about the immigration issue) strike me as almost as inappropriate as racial or sexist humor.  Conventional wisdom seems to be that in the face of "jokes" like that, you need to shut the joke-tellers down firmly and let them know that you find that kind of thing unacceptable.  But what about politics and religion, especially in the form of forwarded e-mail? If you take issue with a forwarded message are you risking hurting a friend over nothing more than electronic junk mail?  But if you just delete it, are you giving tacit approval to the views expressed?

Ah yes, morality in this grand new century.

One thing I'm sure of though ... it can't be legislated.

(See how I am?)