HEY!

In the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8 the wagons have been circled and we are shooting each other!  What in the world is going on?  

http://justanotherblacksheep.blogspot.com/

http://revjph.blogspot.com/

To name just a couple of the areas where the "rough and tumble boogie" is being played out.  

There is a huge disappointment from the LGBT community.  In California we went from the mountain top with the Supreme Court ruling to the the depths of the valley with the passage of Proposition 8.  Now, we are beating the crap out of anyone and everyone for all sorts of reasons when in fact we should be gathering our resources and responding in ways that will support the LGBT community.  The folks at the "other sites" are having a field day with this and do not think for one minute that this nonsense going on is not going to come back and hurt the need for full rights for all people.  Peaceful protests, peaceful marching in the streets, letter writing campaigns, court action (which seems to be the most sensible/productive) are all things we should be focusing on.  Beating each other up does not strike me as really productive.  Bating up those that hurt you does not seem like a way in which to change their minds -- in fact it is counter productive.  In fact it gives the enemies of constitutional rights more ammunition to go after other persons rights.

I cannot walk in your shoes, I cannot feel your pain, and I cannot feel your despair.  I am not you.  But I do support your drive for full rights like yesterday.  Keep in mind that courts have said the LGBT person has these God-given rights.  This proposition 8 has denied them to you but they have not taken them away from you, no one and nothing can do that.  We just need the courts to once again reiterate that fact.  It will happen.  

LEFT BEHIND

Do you remember the feeling of being at a parade after the parade has passed?  How about the feeling on Christmas day after all the packages are unwrapped and the dinner has been consumed.  It is an empty feeling, a feeling that it was great while it lasted but did I miss something. A feeling somewhere inside, I cannot quite describe where, that tugs at your stomach and feels like I ate too much but I didn't.   The feeling that while the parade was passing I was terribly excited but I missed something, what was I looking for that did not go by?  What was I expecting at Christmas but did not get?  It is not exactly sorrow, it certainly is not anger and it is not really depression though it feels like it a lot.  It is a mix of joy sadness, exuberance and melancholy, of hope and frustration.

I am grateful that after 40 years my generation had some small part to play in the election of a person of color.  After 40 years of riding the money train we hopped off long enough to remember why we are here and took action.  There is, as there should be, great joy in this nation.  We are about to embark on a journey that was somehow interrupted back in 1963 and in 1968.  Finally, praise God, we are back on task.

That being said there is still that awful feeling.  Our LGBT friends had there hopes and dreams smashed -- once again.  Here in California apparently one can vote for some to be free but not all.  We have not yet got the message that as long as one person, one group of people, one class of people suffers oppression none of us is free.  

I love what we as a country have done.  The parade was extra special this time.  My birthday party was fun but I am still missing something.  We are missing our LGBT brothers and sisters standing side by side with us as the parade passes.  We forgot to invite our LGBT brothers and sisters to our birthday party.  There is much work to be done.

!VOTE!

The time is come and the day is here.  You owe it to yourself to get to the polls and vote.  I have said this about a billion times -- we are the government -- and it starts with the polling booth.  It is a sacred duty and the primary reason for our educational system.

 

MONDAY: A PARTING GIFT

The Los Angeles Times has an editorial today the clearly debunks all the myths surrounding the pro-proposition 8 arguments. Ordinarily I would simply link to that article and allow the readership to go and read it for yourself. As a gift, you do not have to do all that work, here it is:

No on Proposition 8
Debunking the myths used to promote the ban on same-sex marriage.
November 2, 2008


Clever magicians practice the art of misdirection -- distracting the eyes of the audience to something attention-grabbing but irrelevant so that no one notices what the magician is really doing. Look over at that fuchsia scarf, up this sleeve, at anything besides the actual trick.

The campaign promoting Proposition 8, which proposes to amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, has masterfully misdirected its audience, California voters. Look at the first-graders in San Francisco, attending their lesbian teacher's wedding! Look at Catholic Charities, halting its adoption services in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal! Look at the church that lost its tax exemption over gay marriage! Look at anything except what Proposition 8 is actually about: a group of people who are trying to impose on the state their belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.

That truth would never sell in tolerant, live-and-let-live California, and so it has been hidden behind a series of misleading half-truths. Once the sleight of hand is revealed, though, the campaign's illusions fall away.

Take the story of Catholic Charities. The service arm of the Roman Catholic Church closed its adoption program in Massachusetts not because of the state's gay marriage law but because of a gay anti-discrimination law passed many years earlier. In fact, the charity had voluntarily placed older foster children in gay and lesbian households -- among those most willing to take hard-to-place children -- until the church hierarchy was alerted and demanded that adoptions conform to the church's religious teaching, which was in conflict with state law. The Proposition 8 campaign, funded in large part by Mormons who were urged to do so by their church, does not mention that the Mormon church's adoption arm in Massachusetts is still operating, even though it does not place children in gay and lesbian households.

How can this be? It's a matter of public accountability, not infringement on religion. Catholic Charities acted as a state contractor, receiving state and federal money to find homes for special-needs children who were wards of the state, and it faced the loss of public funding if it did not comply with the anti-discrimination law. In contrast, LDS (for Latter-day Saints) Family Services runs a private adoption service without public funding. Its work, and its ability to follow its religious teachings, have not been altered.

That San Francisco field trip? The children who attended the wedding had their parents' signed permission, as law requires. A year ago, with the same permission, they could have traveled to their teacher's domestic-partnership ceremony. Proposition 8 does not change the rules about what children are exposed to in school. The state Education Code does not allow schools to teach comprehensive sex education -- which includes instruction about marriage -- to children whose parents object.

Another "Yes on 8" canard is that the continuation of same-sex marriage will force churches and other religious groups to perform such marriages or face losing their tax-exempt status. Proponents point to a case in New Jersey, where a Methodist-based nonprofit owned seaside land that included a boardwalk pavilion. It obtained an exemption from state property tax for the land on the grounds that it was open for public use and access. Events such as weddings -- of any religion -- could be held in the pavilion by reservation. But when a lesbian couple sought to book the pavilion for a commitment ceremony, the nonprofit balked, saying this went against its religious beliefs.

The court ruled against the nonprofit, not because gay rights trump religious rights but because public land has to be open to everyone or it's not public. The ruling does not affect churches' religious tax exemptions or their freedom to marry whom they please on their private property, just as Catholic priests do not have to perform marriages for divorced people and Orthodox synagogues can refuse to provide space for the weddings of interfaith couples. And Proposition 8 has no bearing on the issue; note that the New Jersey case wasn't about a wedding ceremony.

Much has been made about same-sex marriage changing the traditional definition of marriage. But marriage has evolved for thousands of years, from polygamous structures in which brides were so much chattel to today's idealized love matches. In seeking to add a sentence to California's Constitution that says, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized," Proposition 8 supporters seek to enforce adherence to their own religious or personal definition. The traditional makeup of families has changed too, in ways that many religious people find immoral. Single parents raise their children; couples divorce and blend families. Yet same-sex marriage is the only departure from tradition that has been targeted for constitutional eradication.

Religions and their believers are free to define marriage as they please; they are free to consider homosexuality a sin. But they are not free to impose their definitions of morality on the state. Proposition 8 proponents know this, which is why they have misdirected the debate with highly colored illusions about homosexuals trying to take away the rights of religious Californians. Since May, when the state Supreme Court overturned a proposed ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, more than 16,000 devoted gay and lesbian couples have celebrated the creation of stable, loving households, of equal legal stature with other households. Their happiness in no way diminishes the rights or happiness of others.

Californians must cast a clear eye on Proposition 8's real intentions. It seeks to change the state Constitution in a rare and terrible way, to impose a single moral belief on everyone and to deprive a targeted group of people of civil rights that are now guaranteed. This is something that no Californian, of any religious belief, should accept. Vote no to the bigotry of Proposition 8. (my emphasis).

PS: Thanks to cany and Susan Russell for the heads up.

Sunday Music

Just your typical All Saints' Sunday music... something for you K.D. Lang fans.

You, Me and Traditional Marriage: UPDATED

Sometimes I am slow and so I did not get this emblem embedded until today.  I did write this on the day (actually I think just before) this was the day.  No matter - this is especially for the Central Valley folks.  I saw one No on Prop 8 and about a dozen Yes on Prop 8 commercials and I am frustrated that anyone thinks that somehow the passage of this proposition will do anything but create a permanent rank of second class citizens.  So let me steal the following from a good friend and blogger cany --

I also borrowed this from cany -- thanks and a hat tip to you -- I would like for everyone to concentrate on keeping our democracy free rather than attempting some back door process to screw up the first ten amendments.  

Please, if you have not read this yet read on but more to the point -- when you are finished go directly to your sample ballot mark the no block on Prop 8 and take the sample ballot to your polling place when you go.  Do not let hate and fear get the better of us -- we are all much better than that!

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I/We have been married for over 38 years.  I am unclear on how the passage of Proposition 8 will restore my "traditional marriage".  In fact, I did not know I had a traditional marriage.  At great personal risk, I always thought I was just married.
 
I do know this about our marriage. There is a feeling that at some point in time overtakes one.  I am not sure when it happens, maybe right away, maybe after a while or maybe after some profound experience.  I do not know when.  I do know that when I turn to my spouse and say something, only to find that she is not there, I get a deep, pit of the stomach ache that hurts like the dickens.  I think of the time when she will not ever be there and it brings tears to my eyes.  I cannot imagine a time when she would not be there.  It is quite literally, not within my world view. I hope you all understand what I mean by world view.  World view meaning: if gravity suddenly disappeared and I flew off the face of the earth it would be no less startling than not having my wife with me. 

I believe that anyone who has been married has this same experience from time to time.  It is not unique to me and it is not unique to you.  Would you wish that feeling on anyone else?  I cannot imagine me going through that let alone anyone else.  We, you, me, us in California have the power to end some of those terrible feelings.  Not forever and not for everyone but for some and for a lot of the time.  All you and I and our spouses and our friends and our neighbors have to do is on Tuesday, go to your polling place and vote NO on Proposition 8.  Let us all do something of lasting value.  Listen to what follows and then go to the pools on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 and vote NO on Proposition 8.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Sunday with James Taylor

James Taylor's classic Fire and Rain, a lovely version here with a little cello addition. Though a romantic legend surrounds this song, much of it is about Taylor's personal battle with addiction and despair. Please pray today for those snared by addiction - and thank God for those released to live new lives.