Well, at least it's exercise

I'm going to climb up onto my soapbox again but give me a minute here. I have to scream. Loudly.

ARRRRRRGH!

There is a bumper sticker that I want to buy. I don’t know where to find it but I want it. It says this:

“Where are we going? And how did we end up in this hand basket?”

A few days ago, Beth did an excellent post about equal rights. She had received an email from the Human Rights Committee about how our glorious president has started his new term out with a bang, trying to push through the Marriage Protection Act (MPA) yet again.

I don’t follow politics very well. Quite frankly, it bores me. But there are some things that I am extremely adamant about. One of those things is equal rights. My parents raised me to believe that everyone was created equally and should be treated equally, regardless of race, creed, religion or sexual preference. I find it ridiculous that my president, the president of a country that boasts about freedom, is so adamant that we need to “protect” marriage.

I’m sorry, but how is marriage under attack? Can anyone answer this for me? I was not aware that there was a team of highly trained ninjas out to get marriage. I haven’t heard anything on the news about terrorist attacks on marriage. But apparently, Mr. Bush, in his misguided wisdom, seems to find the fact that gay Americans want to marry as a threat. And what’s even worse? He has supporters. Personally, I think if you want to protect marriage, maybe you could make it so that people can never get divorced.

The thing that ticks me off the most about this is that the majority of the people against gay marriage are Fundamentalist (AKA born-again) Christians. So you have a bunch of hypocritical people prancing around, preaching about how God wants this and God frowns on that. Well, people, I happen to be born-again. It pretty much means that I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. But I seem to have missed something when I did this.

I don’t seem to be on the pipeline to Jesus, having Him whisper in my ear about how He doesn’t believe in gay marriage. In fact, my Jesus? He’s a pretty righteous dude. He’s all full of love and peace and “judge not lest ye be judged.” He’s about forgiveness and caring and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

It drives me crazy to read blogs where all Christians are lumped into the same category. It also drives me crazy to read blogs where someone is told that they are going to hell for being a lesbian. I thought the whole point about Christianity was to be Christ like. Not once do I ever remember reading that Christ, while hanging on the cross for all of our sins, said “Hey, you know what? This is just for the white, heterosexual rich Americans. All of you other people can just forget about getting into Heaven.”

Who are we to decide what a sin is? Or to try to interpret a bible that was written many centuries ago (by men) and that has been translated many times? I am, by no stretch of the imagination, sin free. Can anyone tell me that they are? And if you can’t, then why are you deciding what is a sin for others?

I don’t understand why gays can’t fight in the military. I don’t understand why they can’t marry. I don’t understand why they can’t adopt. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Now I could sit back and say that I can’t do anything about it because I’m just one person but you know what? My parents raised me to believe that I can do anything. So I’ve already written to my senators, just like Beth’s post recommends. I hope that you will make the same step.

Oh and here’s a little bit more ridiculousness to brighten your day.

It’s not bad enough with the MPA. No, now we have to attack cartoons. Apparently there are some people who are upset with SpongeBob SquarePants. He’s promoting a gay lifestyle. Yes. Since he holds hands with his friend Patrick. Because apparently holding hands means you’re gay. Or, for that matter, a couple. Remember holding hands when you crossed the street when you were in elementary school? I don’t remember anyone checking to make sure we were divided up boy/girl boy/girl, do you? Or anyone telling me “Dana, you crossed the street with Peter. You’re now his girlfriend.”

I’m not a fan of SpongeBob but I may need to start watching him, just to support his lifestyle.

And then I was reading on www.Diversity.com that there is a PBS cartoon under attack now. Apparently they have a cartoon and there is a bunny named Buster that travels around the country. The cartoon is called Postcards from Buster or something like that. Anyway, in one episode, Buster goes to Vermont and meets not one but two lesbian couples. The flak they are receiving is that parents of children may not choose to introduce this information to their children. What information? That people are gay? Oh, my goodness. The article didn’t indicate whether or not Buster had this huge discussion with the couples about their sexuality. That’s probably because the episode is about maple sugaring, not lesbian couples.

Anyway, my whole point to this vant is just this – when I think of how much suffering is taking place in this world, when there is loss of life, homelessness, starvation, murder, rape, pestilence, etc., doesn’t it seem petty to worry about how marriage is defined? Does it really matter if it’s between a man and a woman or a man and a man or a woman and a woman? Is it really that important? When I was a kid, I asked my mom what marriage meant and she replied simply “It’s when two people love each other and want to spend the rest of their life together.” Nothing about what sex they were. Just two people who love each other.

Thanks for listening. Climbing off my soapbox now. And please, check out the post Beth wrote, there is instructions for contacting your senators.

Previous Comments:

At 6:44 PM, The Lioness said...
You go girl, tell it like it is! Amen. SERIOUSLY. And this will all backfire bcs in Muslim countries it's v common for men to walk hand in hand. Guess who'll be v v pissed off! And this is for you: http://buffyology.johnhorner.nu/
At 5:08 PM, brooksba said...
DM,I have the same feelings about this. I figured by doing my original post, it might get you up on the soapbox again. You wrote:"Anyway, my whole point to this vant is just this – when I think of how much suffering is taking place in this world, when there is loss of life, homelessness, starvation, murder, rape, pestilence, etc., doesn’t it seem petty to worry about how marriage is defined?"The answer is "No." It is not petty to worry about how marriage is defined. You actually put a wonderful definition in your post:“It’s when two people love each other and want to spend the rest of their life together.” That is a definition of marriage. I just wonder about how history is going to look back on this time of our history. This fight has been fought before, over and over, for different minorities. It's all still the same argument by those trying to oppress. It's discrimination, plain and simple. Haven't we learned yet?Beth
At 4:19 PM, Robert ~ Marlénè said...
We were talking about these vocally hateful so-called "Christians" at brunch after church yesterday, and Daddy and I agreed that they are giving Christianity a bad name, are in fact destroying Christianity in this country, and should be stopped. If other, real Christians would make a more concerted effort to call these people on their bullshit (the way the United Churches of Christ tried to do, but were thwarted by the media), they might get more support than the right-wing loudmouths who are giving Christ some pretty bad PR. There are a lot of middle-of-the-road, kind-of-conservative, generally compassionate Christians being swept up in the hysteria spewing out of small but dangerously vocal fringe elements like the Moral Majority, Focus on Family, etc... if enlightened Christians could make even more noise, those middle-of-the-road types might swing back the other way, back towards Christ's own teaching. But as Bertrand Russell put it: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." Enlightened loving people tend to make a lot less noise than the stupid and hateful.And on the topic of the "protection of marriage," I'm all for it, and here's why: it is beautifully unenforceable. By stating that a marriage can only be between a man and a woman because a child can only be born from a man and a woman, you therefore state categorically that marriage is exclusively for the purpose of breeding; such "protection" of marriage would illegalize a lot more marriages than gay marriages... such as post-menopausal women, sterile or sterilized men, etc. It would then naturally follow that no marriage could be legitmimate until it produced offspring. The number of test-cases that could be brought against such an amendment is utterly mind-boggling.Both of my senators are already on record as being against the MPA, so I don't need to write and convince them, but I will certainly write in support.