The ties that bind

Every year when the holidays roll around, I'm reminded of just how different I am from the rest of my family. It's a wonder we manage to get along at all.\nTake my grandparents, for instance. Recently, I walked into their living room to discover my college graduation photo had been replaced by a picture of a smiling Alan Keyes.\nKeyes is the ultra-conservative Republican who ran for the U.S. Senate seat last year in Illinois against Democrat Barack Obama. I worked for Obama's campaign, and my grandparents knew that. Out of the 10 or so people who actually voted for Keyes, six of them came from my family.\nGrandma keeps the television on constantly, but she only watches two things: "The Young and the Restless" and Fox News. If Y&R isn't on, you can bet Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly are.\nMy grandparents are devout Southern Baptists, so every night before bed they have Bible reading and prayer time, praying for such people as President Bush, Rush Limbaugh and -- I'm not kidding -- Karl Rove.\nIt's no wonder the special prosecutor can't find enough evidence to indict Rove. Thanks to my grandparents, he's probably surrounded by legions of guardian angels.\nIn my mind, the U.S. Senate is one of the finest, noblest institutions in our republic. On the other hand, my grandparents believe it would be the perfect place to drop a bomb if (God forbid!) the terrorists should attack again.\nGrandpa disapproves of my job as a law clerk for a toxic tort litigator, because trial lawyers (along with Earl Warren and Roman Catholicism) are the ruination of America. Grandpa also believes that someday soon, Islamic fundamentalists and the Chinese will unite to make war against the United States and the nation of Israel, which of course will bring on the apocalypse.\nMeanwhile, Grandma believes it's time for the people whom Hurricane Katrina left homeless to "get off their asses and work."\nThe men in my family all hunt raccoons, and at the Thanksgiving dinner table, they passed around the bone from a raccoon's penis. They prize the penis bones, because apparently they're one of three things on Earth made of pure ivory, along with elephant tusks and piano keys.\nMy uncle even refers to the house where two local gay men live together as "the hamster hutch." It's like I was raised by an army of Archie Bunkers.\nBut you know what? During that nightly hour when my grandparents pray for Rove, they pray for my sister, my cousins and me, too. They take home-cooked food to the poor and give insane amounts of money to neighbors who are down-and-out.\nAnd at Thanksgiving, when Grandpa blessed the food, he broke into tears of gratitude when he thanked the Almighty for blessing our family and our country. Sure, they're a little crazy, but they're also good people. They really are.\nAnd while we might love America and God in very different ways, we love each other in precisely the same way: unconditionally. After all, that's what makes us a family.