I think many of my blogs may have come off as anti-Christian or anti-religious.  Frankly that’s the wrong impression.  I really respect many people of many different faiths.  I think religion can provide strong morals, such as ‘love thy neighbor’, and other wisdom to live by.  In fact if I were surrounded in a world of practicing Christians, I wouldn’t be so bitter all the time.  The fact is though, there are a lot of people in America who, under the guise of religion, spread hate and discrimination.  That is what I cannot stand.  If you’re going to say you believe in something, actually take the time to know what you’re believing in and practice it.

Why were women so restricted 200 years ago?  Because people used the Bible to justify the housewife position, women only existed to serve their husbands and procreate.  They could not do ‘a man’s job’.  Perhaps that is why our country was founded on the principle of women not being allowed to vote for their own president, they didn’t have as much going on up in their heads as men.  Then the Bible was used to defend slavery.  There are extensive topics regarding the subject, all pointing to the absolute obedience of a slave to his master.  White supremacy ruled over our nation and churches did nothing to stop the vast injustice.  Now we come to a new century.  One in which two people in love aren’t allowed to get married.  The World Health Organization has already ruled that, no, I do not have some medical illness.  No, more likely that I won some sort of genetic lottery.  Or, as current science is looking into, was affected by a mix of hormones while I was developing in the womb.  A little less sin, a lot more born the way I am.

So.  There are a lot of Christians in my life whom I love and do truly respect.  Please note that any bitter rants about religion are not directed at you.  But the great thing about America is that you can choose whatever religion you want.  And I can too.  This isn’t some system where beliefs are stifled.  This is a country that is fertilized so that its population can believe what they want.  That is the absolute beauty of our system here.  Why some conservative right wing [neo Nazis] want to push THEIR views on a multicultural, multiracial, multireligious nation is up in the air.  Would I ever want to push legislation banning religion because I personally am agnostic?  No.  In fact I find the timeless quote going along the lines of ‘I may not believe in what you say, but I’ll give my life so that you have the freedom to say it’ outstandingly true.

A lady came in to Guest Service on Monday and talked to me for 20 minutes.  It was a complaint.  Why?  Because we sell the Fischer Price dolls that apparently say ‘Islam is the Light’.  Ok, yes, if you listen and are looking for words out of baby gurgling, you can hear that.  Or you could hear ‘Salami is so Right’.  What do you think the media is going to sensationalize though?  Anyways, she sits there and very seriously says how awful this is that we still have it on our shelves.  KMart and Wal Mart have apparently taken them down.  Then she drops a political bomb on me:

“This is America”

REALLY?!  You’re going to sit here and tell me that you don’t want a product sold because you don’t agree with what it’s saying?  IN AMERICA?  In a land that was founded because a group of people were persecuted for their religion?  There are millions of Muslims in America.  They are AMERICAN.  They are no better and no worse than anyone else in this country.  That is OFFENSIVE to them.  That is one of those ‘beyond-words’ its so offensive.  It was offensive to me, not as a Muslim, but as an American.  A patriotic American who believes in freedom for all, even if I’m not going to agree with them.  And she has the FREEDOM to believe that America has to follow HER rules and bow to HER will.  But it is not, in any way shape or form, her right to impose her beliefs on anyone else. 

Really?  This is over a toy.  She’s going on, threatening to talk to churches boycotting Target stores, etc.  I don’t care.  If people want to discriminate against another religion, I don’t want them anywhere near me.  Grow up lady.  Grow the hell up.

The real kicker about all this?  I held a straight face.  I was sympathetic.  I assured her that I would pass the complaint on internally and that I could see where she was coming from.  She actually told me that I was much better than workers at ANOTHER Target who had treated her rudely.  Not just a worker, the manager of toys.  Then when the store manager was called over, apparently they were rude to her too.  Wow, I wonder why.

But I stuck by the points I’m making here.  It was by no means my place to tell her that, no, I thought she was dead wrong and ought to be hung out to dry by real and honorable Christians throughout the country.  She can have her beliefs, I can have mine.  The difference is that I use a personal blog to express myself and she tries to change what a store sells so that she can feel comfortable and secure in her religion.

I don’t consider her a Christian, and I don’t consider anyone else who is willing to use their religion as justification for pushing their beliefs onto other people.  I’m hoping that people reading this will see the difference between expressing yourself and your opinions vs trying to graft your will onto a nation with a diverse population.

The picture above is Sally Kern, who got re-elected to senate in Oklahoma or something.  Her and her husband want me to be sent off to a “Re-Education Camp” (direct quote from Mr. Kern) because the way I am does not fit with their beliefs.

It is better to give more freedoms and let people take advantage of them on an individual level than for a majority to withhold rights from a minority because they may not agree with them.

Good photo editing though, right?  All the Devil horns ‘n stuff look superb.  Photo-realistic if I must say.  Then taking a Zombie head and putting it on her “pastor” husbands head…wow.  No one could tell that was a human beforehand.  Those people are not Christians in any sense of the word.  They can say they are, but honestly, according to their own beliefs, it will be Jesus who decides that.  And Jesus has preached nothing but love.  Spreading bigotry and hate was not part of his gospel.

PS- If anyone wants to read the article that finally made me write all this out, it’s here. Remind me not to ever vote for a politician just because they’re KERN-servative.

PPS- I’ve always wondered why Muslims don’t do more to discourage radical behavior like terrorism that draws so much hate their way.  Now I’m left wondering how Christians are any better when their base is rallied to vote in the embodiement of hate into our government.

PPPS- This article was written by a Christian. Are you the same kind of Christian as him? Comment on this post. Is he really the voice of today’s Christians?

I think this is a worthwhile read for anyone, no matter how you feel on the issue.  You can go to MSNBC’s site and watch it if you’d like here.

—————

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8.  And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble.  You’ll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage. If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling.  With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.”

You're born how you're born

We failed at perserving the definition of voter.  It is an assault on white adult males everywhere and I’m going to lobby congress to not let this despicable amount of tolerance go unpunished.

Did we NOT just reform Iraq’s government because it was based on religion?  Do we NOT have seperation of church and state?  We’re throwing out our OWN RULES and showing our utter hypocrisy.  Both McCain and Obama showed how they really don’t understand our government by appearing in the debate.

America no longer even keeps its own values straight.  Maybe that’s why our citizens no longer do either.  I don’t know, but it was terribly irresponsible and an anti-patriotic sentiment for the church to even SUGGEST hosting, let alone go through with it…and grand finale…for the candidates to PARTICIPATE.  All around bad behavior.  Mike Gravel really still does have my heart <3

PS- Don Werner of Northfield has to be one of the most ignorant neo-conservative religious right members that I have ever heard.  If anyone reads the Northfield News, you know you can count on him to be there to not only screw up American politics, but also the religion he claims to be a part of.  Two for two Don, keep ‘er up!

Lack of religion is causing our country to lose their morals. Nope, wrong again.  There’s a lot of factors that play into this, including bad parenting, misguided government control, etc etc.  I think a lot of what happened here is that people started to take advantage of our ‘freedom’ without fully taking on the included responsibilities.  We’re supposed to WATCH THE NEWS.  We’re supposed to FOLLOW CAMPAIGNS.  We’re supposed to be ACTIVE IN OUR COMMUNITY.  But of course as long as we GET WHAT WE WANT as SOON AS WE WANT IT, we’re happy.  We’re a fat culture, in more ways than ever.

Our government cannot be trusted. That actually sounds like something someone on the right wing would say.  The fact is, it’s Bush that can’t be trusted.  I am so gung ho about people getting their faith restored in our government it’s not even funny.  I want people to see tangible effects of the government doing positive things here and abroad.  We don’t need to help anyone else right now (Iraq), what we need is to clean up our own country and take the initiative to help out.

There will be change once a new president is elected. This one I’m really worried about.  I’m not so much against a conservative president, but McCain?  No.  People…how has Bush helped us?  Really?  It’s ridiculous that we’d even consider a presidential conidate that has so much in common with our current caricature of a president.  Obama at least should’ve gotten a decent rival.  One that wouldn’t make me want to leave the country if he were to be elected.

As a closing thought, do we really exist?  There has yet to be proof.  One day at a time.  Live and then die.  Let’s not squander our time making artificial rules that mean nothing in the grand scheme of time.

In perspective, I can’t get married.  Why?  Because the religious right thinks it’s an abomination.  I didn’t choose to be gay.  To put it bluntly, I do not want to procreate.  As in I have no interest in doing what is required.  That is definitely a genetic trait that is abnormal, seeing as how most males want to get as much tail as they can, but it’s not something to cry witch over either.

I will die.  Whether or not I die happy in the arms of my husband does not seem like a choice that is fair to make by another person.  I hate how people choose these witch hunt topics that never have anything to do with what’s really going on.  Love is biological, it’s not religious.  Don’t make it something it’s not.  And last time I checked, love was not offensive.

I think I was too optimistic.  I don’t think America will last much longer frankly as the world super power.  This post actually has 5 good points.  We can’t cooperate with each other, we’re dedicated to holding our own beliefs and not budging.  Why?  Probably because just like the Middle East we have hugely religious backing in most areas which leads to people believing something without knowing why they are or how to actually understand what they believe in.  Whatever.

Also there are now rumors that Congress met in March to discuss the imminent collapse of our economy in late 2008.  Right now I’m not going to vouch for the authenticity of the news article…but that’s scary.  It was apparently a closed door meeting (which would be the 4th in our 200 year history) which discussed the possiblity of a civil war breaking out as a result.

Oh yeah, and in addition, the news source above discussed an advance round up of insurgent US citizens.  Sounds like we’re headed towards a Police State.

Well, good luck.  It’s not like anyone would rescue us anyways because we’ve stocked up on so many weapons.  So basically we beefed up our defenses, but turns out we were only locking ourselves in.  Haha.  In a way I kind of like the irony of this possible situation.

<3 Paul

PS- Bush has ruined our country.  I want to send out a special thank you for those of you who voted for him.  Twice.

I’m not sure if many of you have heard, but Viacom sued Google for all the user’s information on YouTube because of some copyright issues.  This is why I don’t like the current set of Media Conglomerates.  They don’t care about the consumer. All they care about is the profits they’ll make off of you.  Obviously any sane company would work with Google to get copyrighted video clips off of YouTube.  Money crazed media companies however want to play big brother and monitor every single video you watched and every single video search you performed.  And sadly, they won that suit.  How can such a gross violation of privacy like that be allowed?

It’s just like the RIAA.  They sue everyone who they think has downloaded music illegally, sometimes winning and sometimes not, but artists have seen none of the money.  The whole point of the suits, according to the RIAA is because bands, artists, performers, etc are losing money.  Yet any money they win does not filter back to the artists at all.

Our American economy is out of control.  Just like the artificially inflated gas prices at the pump.  How can the oil companies be taking in record profits if they’re only raising prices because of global demand?  That would only result in the same profits coming in if they were taking the same margin.  Obviously they’re not.

Money makes the world keep spinning <3

Is it my faith you seek, because you already had it, or was it just my simple starry eyed admiration that you wanted to keep with your propaganda machines constantly telling me over and over what my ideals are and what my beliefs are and who I should hate and who I should love and who deserves the war that we bring to them, only because they have brought it unto themselves in the first place, is it that or did you just want me content as you went on your little rampage taking me for granted, trying to keep me in a coma as the chaos ensued around my hospital bed but you kept my ears plugged and my eyes covered, well, you tried but somehow I got the remote and turned on the TV, and even with the poor reception I saw what you never intended me to see and what you never wanted me to hear, and I saw how you deceived me and I heard the illegitimacy of your lies and suddenly my mind was clearer than it had ever been before and I was simply a slave and you were my master and the whole situation was no longer something innocent it was a rape of my innocence and you were over me panting and I still had it in my head that no meant no but there comes a point when your voice just stops working because you’ve been screaming so much and through it all you never heard me you covered my head and did you work and somehow everyone else looks past me and looks to you and supports you and I shout out again for help but people tell me to be quiet and I look in your eyes and wonder how I could’ve been one of those people who told others to hold their tongues when they cried for help and I wondered how I was the one who saw your bloody hands and somehow managed to be silent when mothers screamed that their children were being slaughtered and after all I’ve been through who am I to ask for anyone else’s help, who am I to expect anyone else to listen and suddenly the responsibility is falling on my shoulders because now I sit back and do nothing as your followers bow and bow again, defend you as the blood pools around your feet, fight for you as the blood pools around the world, and they just keep on chanting in time with you and I can’t for the life of me understand this madness that everyone is caught up over, I can’t understand why I’m no longer in the land of the free, I can’t understand why people are holding guns up to their heads and pulling the trigger when they could swear to god they’re pointing it at the enemy.

Honestly though, what does it hurt?  This is just about as moronic as men striking down women’s rights in recent history, or looking back, the South supporting segregation.  Or just look at any idiotic motion to support any sort of discrimination at all throughout history.

Gay marriage does NOT affect straight marriages AT ALL.  The biggest complaint I’VE heard is that people will just do it for tax breaks.  Well you know what?  There are a great deal of white (majority) straight (majority) couples popping out kids for welfare money.  There are a great deal of straight couples that can stay married just to get tax breaks.  Is this a game of who can outsmart the government and who can’t suddenly?  Frankly people who would do this sort of thing are going to find a way no matter what.

Seriously.  These people look like monsters.  “Ok, yes, this is the land of the free.  But what about FAMILY VALUES?!”  Yeah?  What about them?  Last time I checked this was not a country that was supposed to have a government influenced by a SINGLE religion, let alone any religion at all.  The founding fathers did NOT approve of that model and that is what we ESCAPED from in England.  He who fights the monster must becareful lest he become one.  America, observe said proverb.  In fact we make a big deal about the Muslim government in middle eastern countries…yet we’re fine with being hypocrits.

I think at some point during my travels abroad I saw how backwards Americans really are.  No wonder almost every other country in the world hates us.  There’s a reason folks.  I’m not even sure if we can reverse the pervasive ignorance around us.

Grow up folks.  Intolerance was so 1800s.  We’ve made it through slavery, we’ve survived through women suddenly wearing pants (GASP- THE HORROR!), we’ve stumbled through Japanese internment, now we just need to jump through the recent immigration discrimination and the treatment of homosexuals.  I still think love is love and people are people.