One of the most interesting thing about corresponding in cyberspace is that it affords the opportunity to meet people you never would have met otherwise. My vacation last week gave me the chance to meet my anti-blogger, Adam Graham, of Adam’s Web.

If you haven’t been following the Writ very long, let me explain: Adam is a conservative Christian anti-abortion pro-Ten-Commandments blogger who supports George W. Bush. In other words, my anti-blogger, like Evil Spock with the Van Dyke in the alternate Star Trek universe. Which is not to say Adam is evil, of course. That’s my gig.

Anyway, I tracked him down when I was researching the issue of public displays of the Ten Commandments. Boise had such a monument up in a public park since 1965. No one thought much of it — indeed, I grew up in Boise and didn’t even know it existed! — until Fred Phelps (the repugnant homophobe behind GodHatesFags.com) threatened a lawsuit claiming that if the religious display of the Ten Commandments was OK in the park, he’d sue to get his religious display of Leviticus 18:22 condemning gay-lynching victim Matthew Shepard to hell. Rather than face a lawsuit, the city council moved the monument from the park to its current location on the grounds of a church facing the state capitol.

Adam turned out to be one of the protestors who fought alongside the Keep the Commandments Coalition in Boise, a movement spearheaded by Boise’s rising conservative superstar, Generation Life’s Brandi Swindell, whom I had also been Googling because (a) she was involved in protesting the Terri Schiavo debacle and (b) I think I went to high school with her cousin.

Since I was to be in Boise for nine days, I thought it the perfect opportunity to meet face to face. I asked Adam if he would show me the former location of the Ten Commandments in the park and its current location at the church. I also asked if he’d show me the Idaho Human Rights Anne Frank Memorial, because he’d argued that if inscriptions of Confucius, Buddha, Mormon President Gordon Hinckley, and the UN Declaration of Human Rights were OK as a monument, why not the Ten Commandments? (My response to that idea is here. His points are here and there.)

You can scour the Writ to find the many conversations Adam and I have had over the past few months, if you like. You’ll find many links in the Modern Mythology section on my right sidebar. I was very glad to meet Adam, though I was surprised to be meeting someone bigger than me wearing a kilt. I’ve really enjoyed our back-and-forth; unlike most conservatives I do battle with, Adam is actually interested in debating the issues and not name-calling and he does try to understand the other side’s point-of-view. I find him to be morally consistent (a rarity in conservative circles) and he doesn’t always toe the party line (he agrees with me on the absurdity of federal drug law, albeit for different reasons than mine). Most of all, he’s always been polite, intelligent, and a very good writer.

Of course, I think most of his positions are anathema to a free and prosperous America, and I think he’d say the same about me. But just becuase we don’t agree doesn’t mean we can’t get along, right? I think more people should break bread (or pizza, in our case) with people from the other side, if only to realize that the people we disagree with aren’t always the rabid monsters we sometimes make them out to be. They are proud, patriotic Americans, like us, who only want what is best for this country. They’re just wrong and we need to keep up a dialogue with them to convince them we’re right! 😉

Thanks for the visit, Adam. It was a brave and honorable thing to do (especially letting me take the photo, even after I told you what the cartoon captions would be!) and I doubt many of my ideological opponents would have done the same.

P.S. Writ faithful, look at the photo above and tell the truth: If you didn’t know which one of us was which, who would you have guessed is the guy lobbying for the legalization of marijuana?