Some people think that gay marriage, or homosexuality in general, is a sign of the decline of morals and civilization. I think the true decline of morals and civilization is when someone, anyone, rejects a form of love in favor of hatred. Homosexuality is not simply about sex; it is about caring for and loving someone of the same sex. It is about wanting to spend your life with them, possibly raise a family, share goals and interests, grow old together. These are basic human desires regardless of how you label the human having them. In sharp contrast, anti-gay people want to deny these basic desires to a group of fellow human beings. In many cases they are willing to go so far as to choose hatred and bigotry for a group of people over love and support for their own family members, even their own children.
Looked at from another angle, would this ever be accepted as moral or civilized. Heterosexuality is not simply about sex; it is about caring for and loving someone of the opposite sex. It is about wanting to spend your life with them, possibly raise a family, share goals and interests, grow old together. These are basic human desires regardless of how you label the human having them. In sharp contrast, anti-straight people want to deny these basic desires to a group of fellow human beings. In many cases they are willing to go so far as to choose hatred and bigotry for a group of people over love and support for their own family members, even their own children.
Ridiculous sounding isn’t it? If you believe in science than you have to accept that people are born the way they are born; male, female, gay, straight, black, white, tall, short, fat, thin. These are things we may try to hide or change about ourselves but they are things we can’t change (without serious scientific interventions). If you believe in God then you have to ask yourself, “who am I to decide that God made a mistake?” because you can’t have it both ways. Either he created us all, or he didn’t create anything. Even more to the point, we should all be looking to ourselves to improve the things we can change; our attitudes towards others, our kindness and generosity, our setting aside of judgments of others. I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but what exactly happened to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you”? For any of those people wanting to deny something to someone else or worse, physically hurt them, have you ever stopped to ask yourself what you would want to have happen if the tables were turned? Perhaps you should start.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Friday, October 29, 2004
dusting off the soap box
Wow, for almost 20 yrs I have been done with ranting about Gay rights. Being gay is just one aspect of me after all. When I was younger I was much more in your face about the whole thing, it was THE identifying label I wore. If you didn't like it you could go to hell, you could certainly remove yourself from my life - which I told my family. As I got older it became less of an issue. It was like being white, or brown haired, or Californian - all things I was born with. Every year things seemed to get more accepting. Plus, my circle of friends was more varied and no one had an issue, gay or straight.
The HUGE issue of gay marriage came along, and truthfully I have never been a follower of organized religion, so if some church doesn't want to recognize a gay marriage then that's fine with me. If I decide to join a church, I'll join one that has an accepting - truly Christian or truly inclusive - philosophy. I do, however, think it is important to be afforded the same civil rights as the other taxpayers in my country. I do not think the government has any business pushing the religious values of any one group on to the citizenry of the whole country.
I may even take that a step beyond equal rights for gays though. Personally, I think that even people that do not form a sexual relationship can form a lifelong intimate relationship. Those people, regardless of gender make up, should be allowed to claim domestic partnership as tax payers sharing a household and domestic responsibilities. But I digress...
The reason I am writing today is because I just read an article Nigerian President Backs African Bishops that states, when discussing the concept of gay-marriage:
"Such tendencies are clearly unbiblical, unnatural and definitely un-African," Obasanjo said Wednesday. Obasanjo, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, is a Baptist.
I am so tired of people preaching to us about how our "choice" is unnatural. I no more chose to be gay then I did to be white, or female, or have brown eyes. I was born this way. Some people are born "straight" and we sure don't have any issue or global debates over that being unnatural. (I won't go into unbiblical because my personal opinion is that if there is a God, his word has been corrupted by the human, mostly male, interpretation of it. It doesn't exist in a pure form, no matter how much they wave/shake a bible at me.) Who made straight "normal" and gay "unnatural"?
I heard someone on the radio the other day try to actually meld the theories of creation and evolution to their own ends in an argument against gays. In the end it obviously was based on religion and not fact. It went something like this... Gays are unnatural because they serve no purpose in evolution. Male and female have the sole purpose of procreation, so if gays aren't driven by the need to procreate, they offer nothing to evolution therefore must be unnatural. The glaring flaw for me in that argument is that, well actually there are many:
1. not procreating is part of population control, a NATURAL form of checks and balances - more should try it but that's just my opinion
2. Many gays DO procreate, one has nothing to do with the other really
3. many primates participate in homosexual activity, not just humans
4. many "straights" are unable to procreate - at least until science caught up and they don't seem to have an issue with this "unnatural" form of procreation. If God had meant them to procreate, wouldn't he have made them fertile? Aren't they messing with Gods master design? Why is it that they only spout scripture when it's to their advantage?
5. Many "straights" choose not to procreate either because of political reasons, a lack of maternal/paternal instinct, or from a desire to not pass on a genetic "flaw" that they think might be harmful to future generations.
And what about that line "and definitely un-African,"? What in the hell does that mean? Africa is a continent, a country, a race of people, a culture, just where in all of those various entities do you get to speak for the whole of X? As an American I say it is definitely un-American to ... have green eyes. Oops, sorry, you are unnatural because all people should have BROWN eyes, like me. I am American, and I am natural (not really cause I'm gay, we're just illustrating a point) therefore I speak for and represent ALL Americans - and all Americans are JUST LIKE ME! Except they aren't.
Whether you believe in God or not you should at least be able to give the credit where credit is due, and it's not with you. Either Nature made ALL of us, or GOD made all of us. But either way, You are not the boss of Me!
I feel better now.
The HUGE issue of gay marriage came along, and truthfully I have never been a follower of organized religion, so if some church doesn't want to recognize a gay marriage then that's fine with me. If I decide to join a church, I'll join one that has an accepting - truly Christian or truly inclusive - philosophy. I do, however, think it is important to be afforded the same civil rights as the other taxpayers in my country. I do not think the government has any business pushing the religious values of any one group on to the citizenry of the whole country.
I may even take that a step beyond equal rights for gays though. Personally, I think that even people that do not form a sexual relationship can form a lifelong intimate relationship. Those people, regardless of gender make up, should be allowed to claim domestic partnership as tax payers sharing a household and domestic responsibilities. But I digress...
The reason I am writing today is because I just read an article Nigerian President Backs African Bishops that states, when discussing the concept of gay-marriage:
"Such tendencies are clearly unbiblical, unnatural and definitely un-African," Obasanjo said Wednesday. Obasanjo, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, is a Baptist.
I am so tired of people preaching to us about how our "choice" is unnatural. I no more chose to be gay then I did to be white, or female, or have brown eyes. I was born this way. Some people are born "straight" and we sure don't have any issue or global debates over that being unnatural. (I won't go into unbiblical because my personal opinion is that if there is a God, his word has been corrupted by the human, mostly male, interpretation of it. It doesn't exist in a pure form, no matter how much they wave/shake a bible at me.) Who made straight "normal" and gay "unnatural"?
I heard someone on the radio the other day try to actually meld the theories of creation and evolution to their own ends in an argument against gays. In the end it obviously was based on religion and not fact. It went something like this... Gays are unnatural because they serve no purpose in evolution. Male and female have the sole purpose of procreation, so if gays aren't driven by the need to procreate, they offer nothing to evolution therefore must be unnatural. The glaring flaw for me in that argument is that, well actually there are many:
1. not procreating is part of population control, a NATURAL form of checks and balances - more should try it but that's just my opinion
2. Many gays DO procreate, one has nothing to do with the other really
3. many primates participate in homosexual activity, not just humans
4. many "straights" are unable to procreate - at least until science caught up and they don't seem to have an issue with this "unnatural" form of procreation. If God had meant them to procreate, wouldn't he have made them fertile? Aren't they messing with Gods master design? Why is it that they only spout scripture when it's to their advantage?
5. Many "straights" choose not to procreate either because of political reasons, a lack of maternal/paternal instinct, or from a desire to not pass on a genetic "flaw" that they think might be harmful to future generations.
And what about that line "and definitely un-African,"? What in the hell does that mean? Africa is a continent, a country, a race of people, a culture, just where in all of those various entities do you get to speak for the whole of X? As an American I say it is definitely un-American to ... have green eyes. Oops, sorry, you are unnatural because all people should have BROWN eyes, like me. I am American, and I am natural (not really cause I'm gay, we're just illustrating a point) therefore I speak for and represent ALL Americans - and all Americans are JUST LIKE ME! Except they aren't.
Whether you believe in God or not you should at least be able to give the credit where credit is due, and it's not with you. Either Nature made ALL of us, or GOD made all of us. But either way, You are not the boss of Me!
I feel better now.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Will of the people?
Wow. I've been gone a while. Got too busy to write.
I was emailed an interesting quote today, in light of our current political climate. I truthfully have not run out to verify it but I thought it was interesting.
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII
I was emailed an interesting quote today, in light of our current political climate. I truthfully have not run out to verify it but I thought it was interesting.
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII
Friday, August 13, 2004
Julia Child passed
Julia Child died today. I am not big on cooking, but she was a crack up. I loved watching her and I loved that she lived for so long doing whatever she pleased. This is an excerpt from the article about her passing. Maybe it will be my new way of thinking.
As the trend toward healthy eating grew in recent years, Child accused "health experts" who advised cutting out rich foods like red meat and butter as "nutritional Nazis."
"I think these fake foods aren't worth eating," she said in 1992. "Either have the real thing and a little of it or have something else. I like real hamburgers and real meat, real butter. Eat everything. Have fun."
As the trend toward healthy eating grew in recent years, Child accused "health experts" who advised cutting out rich foods like red meat and butter as "nutritional Nazis."
"I think these fake foods aren't worth eating," she said in 1992. "Either have the real thing and a little of it or have something else. I like real hamburgers and real meat, real butter. Eat everything. Have fun."
Not a donation
People, people, people, when you are tired of your dog and no longer want to care for it, and you call a rescue or shelter to have them take it off your hands, it is not called a "donation". When you call and say that you would like to "donate" your 12 year old dog, you are not giving us a gift, you are abandoning your responsibilities and going back on a commitment to care for that dog for it's lifetime. You have failed. I often wonder why people think that they can do a better job with kids when they can't even care for a dog or cat. But then, some people do leave their children behind bars in shopping carts so I guess people just suck.
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