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Although I am an anti-religion Atheist, I like to consider myself open minded. That said, I occasionally watch religious documentaries and read books from the religious-right. Today I came upon this video on Netflix called “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers” which was apparently adapted from a book of the same name.

The author (and host of the movie) is an evangelical, but one I could consider liberal. Although he holds deep conviction in his beliefs, he also sees how the rest of the world views fundamentalist Christians and wants to change that perception. His message is that Christians are losing their Christ-like demeanor and actually going backward in terms of their sociocultural stances. Rather than focusing on love and turning the other cheek, they are becoming more combattive and militant – working to pass laws to deny women reproductive right and LGBTQ Americans civil rights all in the name of religion.

I am all for freedom of speech, it is our first amendment right after all. And although I am generally all for the ACLU, I do think they go a bit far with pressuring businesses not to celebrate Christmas or Easter. There is nothing offensive to me about a nativity, a “holiday” tree or the Easter bunny. We have gone too far as a society trying to keep everyone happy. Dan Merchant, in this film, goes as far as showing all of the cities with religious names such as St. Paul, St. Petersburg, etc and jokingly suggesting we rename them to New Leningrad. Although America is not a Christian nation, we are rooted in religious freedom, after all that is why our original settlers came here. Let Americans celebrate religious holidays and let cities keep their names.

What this ultimately gives us as Bill O’Reilly and Dan Merchant have suggested is a culture war in the US. We have the liberals (or “secular progressives” as Bill O’Reilly coined in his book Culture Warrior) on one side and the conservatives (the religious-right) on the other side. Neither is willing to accept defeat and in the past decade this has fueled a huge political “fire” which has come to define American politics.

Next the movie goes on to show a “Family Feud” style game show with liberals versus conservatives. The liberals whipped the butts of the conservatives, even when it came to religious topics. Dan Merchant’s message through this illustration is that liberals (secular progressives) understand the culture of Christians much better than Christians understand the culture and beliefs of progressives. He goes as far as saying that if this disconnect between the two factions doesn’t change that we are going to continue to live in a very divided country.

Drawing on the opinions of authors, politicians and lots of other big names in our culture, Dan Merchant touches on American consumerism. I know I personally am a “victim” (happy participant) in consumerism. I have been programmed by our society to live by the motto “want it, buy it; can’t afford it, charge it” and it’s a very bad thing. Christian, Atheist, conservative, liberal, straight, gay, male, female – we are all victims of consumerism. Consumerism is an issue we should all be concerned with. It should be the big issue, not gay marriage, not abortion.

Jesus Christ is someone that we all respect. Christians or Atheists – we all agree that Jesus was a great philosopher, he is a great idea. We can all apply his teachings to our life and make it a better life. We may differ on believing that he is a god rather than just a great man, but regardless we should all apply his teachings to our life.

In the end, although I may never see eye to eye with the religious-right, a difference in belief doesn’t mean we have to be enemies. I have tons of people in my life who are staunchly religious, including my mother. I love her dearly. I have friends, acquaintances, colleagues and family members who I love dearly and we don’t see eye to eye on really…anything. If I can get along with them, why can’t others in the American public agree to disagree with people? Like race and gender, religion and sexual orientation should be irrelevant in American culture. There is a separation of church and state in our country. There is also unlimited religious freedom (along with freedom of speech and assembly also guaranteed in the first amendment). Rather than always being at war with each other, we need to live and let live. Although I’m sure this culture war isn’t going away anytime soon, the only thing that is going to win this war is love (something profound that was said to me by a teacher from my high school). We need to learn to understand the “enemy”, learn to see the good in them, learn to love them, learn to work together for a common good that we can all agree upon.

All humans have the potential for love, for goodness. Lets put our differences aside and start loving rather than hating. Love conquers all.

Some of the most outspoken personalities of the religious right are women. Sharon Engel, Sarah Palin, Anne Coulter – the list continues. They claim to believe in the bible and to live by its rules, but do they really adhere to strict biblical canon? After all, it is immoral and sinful to pick and choose the parts of the bible that you like. Lets see what the New Testament has to say about the role of women in society…

This from 1 Corinthians 11:

11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
11:4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
11:5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
11:6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
11:8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man.
11:9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.
11:11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

Further, from 1 Corinthians 14:

14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
14:35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

Rather than being so outspoken about political issues, campaigning to deny civil rights to minority groups, and having tea parties – perhaps these outspoken women should follow the teachings of the Apostle Paul in their Providence-inspired holy book: shut up, cover your head and if you must speak, filter it through your husband. Don’t have a husband? I’m sorry. Marriage is sacred, you should go find one.

Until next time…

The politics in America are ridiculous right now, especially where Republicans are concerned. I say this as a fiscal conservative and social liberal. Congress has been called into an emergency session right now to approve a bill that would give money to state and local governments to save the jobs of public servants like teachers, police officers, firefighters, etc.

In the past few months, we have seen a big growth in private sector and manufacturing jobs but a big decline in public sector jobs. Admittedly a lot of the public sector jobs were temporary census jobs, but STILL there were quite a few other jobs that could have been saved if the local governments just had the funding they needed.

During the controversial Obama stimulus package of 2008, while fighting out the stimulus package in the House and Senate, the conservatives forced the Democrats to concede billions in monies to state and local governments to save education, state-level healthcare and other public servant jobs. That is why America is in such bad shape right now! We rewarded the banks and financial institutions that fucked up the economy in the first place and bailed out GM but we neglected the people who matter who are our public servants.

The budget cuts are so bad that some states are going as far as turning off street lights, unpaving roads, ending public transportation and cutting school weeks to only 4 days a week! Education should be our number one priority. We should not be cutting education, healthcare or public transportation. If anything we should be cutting the pensions of politicians and the amount of days that state legislatures meet.

We know the problems, we know that giving money to state and local governments will help – but Republicans are refusing to do this. If we’re going to pull money out of thin air and burden future generations with paying it off, we should be giving to public servants, not corrupt banks and lending institutions like Goldman Sachs or car manufacturers like GM. These companies don’t even do much for our economy – companies like Toyota (a Japanese company) provide many more jobs and economic growth than GM (an American company).

Republican idiots, grow up. Stop demanding tax cuts for the rich and start fighting for what really matters which is proper education (jobs for our teachers) and social services (jobs for the typical American everyman).

The media conglomerate Discovery Communications used to be known for their earth-friendly offerings. But they’ve just paid millions to Sarah Palin to host a “nature” show, despite her decidedly anti-environmental stance: She vocally advocates for habitat-destroying oil drilling, she denies global warming is a human-caused threat, and she spearheaded a brutal wolf-slaughter program as governor of Alaska.

It’s one thing if Fox News gives Sarah Palin a platform. But when Discovery Communications — home to the Discovery Channel, the “Planet Earth” series, the Science Channel, Animal Planet, and TreeHugger.com — gives a show to Sarah Palin, it undercuts everything the Discovery brand has come to represent.

Anti-environmentalism has no place in the Discovery Communications lineup. Join me in demanding that the company cancel “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” before it airs. Just click on the link below to send your message.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/palin_discovery/?r_by=10405-3080250-c3WhTMx&rc=paste1

So I’ve held off on writing about the ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker in California that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. Of course I was excited, no THRILLED that it was struck down, but I wanted to wait to see how the religious right would respond.

The Absurdity of Proposition 8 (to begin with)

2008 was a year of great victory for progressivism in America. We elected Barack Obama – our first non-white President – something unprecedented in American history. But on the same night – in California – arguably the most liberal state in the Union, citizens passed a law that amended the California constitution to make  gay marriage illegal. The Yes on 8 campaign was filled with lies and scare tactics to entice the ignorant-majority to vote in opposition to Prop 8. I even heard of people so confused by what Yes and No actually meant in regard to the proposition, that they voted opposite of how they intended to.

As Rachel Maddow so eloquently said this week on her show, when you put minority rights up to vote by the majority, the majority will subjugate the minority 100% of the time. 31 out of 31 states that put gay marriage up to a vote, voted against it. Rights should not be put up for vote, they should not be a matter of public opinion, even if many MANY people think they should be. Rights exist to protect people – if we didn’t NEED protecting there would be no need for laws. For example, look at universal suffrage for minorities and women as well as the civil rights battle in the 50s and 60s for minorities and women. Previously, they had a similar position in society as LGBTQ Americans and it took the government intervening to give them rights. Clearly the same was true in the case of Prop 8.

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The Overturn of the Discriminatory Law

Judge Vaughn Walker in California overturned Proposition 8 on Wednesday, August 4th 2010. An appointee of George Bush Senior (AKA Daddy Bush), Walker is assumed to be a conservative-leaning judge. Among other things, Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that “Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.” He also believes (and I agree with him) that “Denying marriage to gay people does not make heterosexual marriages stronger; it does not protect children; it does not have any ‘rational reason’ at all”. He further went on to say that it violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution on the basis of not providing equal protection.

Taken from Change.org:

“Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to legitimate state interest,” asserted Walker in his decision yesterday. And, in a direct strike to social conservative arguments on the “sanctity of marriage,” Walker ruled, “tradition alone, however, cannot form a rational basis for a law.” The old paradigm of rationalized, “reasonable” sexual norms was thus struck down, replaced by a new order, for now, that emphasized our historic “rationales” flaws.

To bolster his point, Walker contended, “The evidence shows that the tradition of restricting an individual’s choice of spouse based on gender does not rationally further a state interest despite its ‘ancient lineage.” Times have changed, he’s saying, and American law needs to keep up.

There’s no way Walker’s decision won’t be debated and discussed for years, perhaps even generations, to come. He totally reoriented previously entrenched ideas about “rational” sexuality and gender identities and placed them in a new context, a more relevant context.

Walker’s Proposition 8 reading totally revolutionized the nation’s idea of “rational reason,” and now there’s no turning back. Not that a reasonable nation would want to in the first place, right?

The Aftermath of Justice

Not unusual for the religious right, all was quiet on the bible belt front. They were so shocked that, for once, that they were silent. At least for a day. Now people on the religious right are calling for the impeachment of Judge Vaughn Walker. On what grounds, I’m not sure. I’m sure something along the lines of denying religious liberty – however, what they really mean is not passing laws derived from the chaos and brutality of the Old Testament.

According to the American Family Association, anything but an organization dedicated to preservingfamily, Judge Vaughn Walker should be impeached because:

(Taken from The Examiner)

• Walker’s decision overturning Prop 8 “frustrated the express will of seven million Californians who went to the polls to shape their state’s public policy on marriage;”
• “Judge Walker is an open homosexual, and should have recused himself from this case due to his obvious conflict of interest. “
• “Federal judges hold office only ‘during good Behaviour,’ and …Judge Walker’s ruling is not ‘good Behaviour.’”

While 6.8 million Californians voted for the Prop 8 gay marriage ban in 2008, more than 6.2 million voted against Prop 8. Moreover, the issue before Judge Walker was whether Prop 8 violated the U.S. Constitution, specifically, the 14th Amendment’s guarantees against deprivation “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and of “equal protection of the laws.” As Judge Walker pointed out in his ruling, these Constitutional protections for minorities of all types are not subject to the whims of a majority of voters.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution provides for the impeachment of “civil officers of the United States” (including federal judges) for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Judge Walker did not do anything illegal or even unethical. He will not be impeached. Stop wasting time and costing the tax payers money in order to force religion on Americans.

As usual the religious-right is just a bunch of idiotic buffoons who are unable to come to terms that society has changed since the Middle Ages. It’s time to move on. The rest of society, including many moderate Christians, have already moved on. It’s time for the far right to do so as well.

I’m sorry if conservatives disagree with gay marriage. In the 1940s, the majority denied the minority (blacks and women) rights. They disagreed that they were deserving of civil rights. In that case as well as this, the government had to step in. Now civil rights for women and minorities are just a fact of life.

I’m sorry if conservatives hold deep religious conviction that homosexuality is deviant behavior. But that’s just too damn bad. Church and State are separate in the United States. If they’d prefer a theocracy, they should move to Iran. Enough said.

Awesome parody video from The Onion -

New Law Would Ban Marriages Between People Who Don’t Love Each Other

I would love to know your thoughts on this.

Edit 19:20 August 6, 2010:

After posting my article I found an awesome article concerning Arnold Schwarzenegger and how he is an LGBT hero. Even the Republican governor of California supports marriage equality. You’d think, being Republican of all unpleasant things, he could be adamantly opposed to marriage equality. However, he praised the decision by Judge Vaughn Walker! And he’s not even up for re-election this year; it was genuine. Schwarzenegger pleaded that gays be allowed to marry immediately, opposing the stay requested by the far-right nutcases. You go Arnie! I love you and I’m proud to be a Californian and an American today!

Recently Target donated $150,000 to a Minnesota PAC supporting Tom Emmer, an anti-gay politician. Not only is Emmer anti-gay, but he supports a rockband who actually advocates death to LGBTQ Americans. As a national chain who has always been progressive in their support of LGBTQ employees with a 100% rating on HRC’s equality index, it baffles me that Target would support such a candidate.

Please stand with me (and the grieving mother in this video) in boycotting Target until they issue a public apology and make this right.

My e-mail to Gregg.Steinhafel@target.com

Hello Gregg,

My family and I have been long term shoppers and fans of Target. We were particularly impressed when you took a stand against the religious-right in not allowing certain dogmatic Christmas symbols. As a supporter of the HRC, I am also proud that Target has a 100% rating on the HRC Workplace Equality Index.

However, this recent news about supporting not just an anti-LGBT politician, but one who supports a rock band who encourages killing LGBTQ Americans, well that is just shameful. My family, friends and anyone who will listen to me will doing business elsewhere – at businesses who do not support hate with their money.

We would be happy to return our business to Target once there has been a formal apology to LGBTQ Americans and a promise to investigate candidates further before making donations in the future.

I’m hoping that Target makes the right choice.

Michael R Brant

Apparently (according to Towleroad) Anne Rice has quit being a Christian for many of the same reasons that I frequently cite when criticizing Christians. I always thought her dramatic shift from vampire author to staunch Christian was a little bit…ironic but this is pretty interesting.

Anne Rice announced on Facebook yesterday that she’s quitting Christianity as a matter of conscience.

Wrote the author:

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

She followed that up with another message:

“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Although it is always sad to me to see people lose their faith and get hurt by something they devoted so much time to, I still find it admirable that Anne Rice is able to stand up for what is right.

Today I was reading an article on Change.org about a church in Michigan who outed one of their gay parishioners and socially isolated him. Having been through similar treatment at a church I went to in high school, I found this article infuriating. Like a lot of Christians, I was very unhappy being gay. In fact, I was self-hating from about 13 years old until late high school. It took me until I was 20 to come out. When I went to this church, I got very involved and became a youth leader. I spent most of my summer volunteering at the church and working hard for – not what I believed in – but for a feeling of belonging, a purpose.

I don’t know that I ever actually drank the Judeo-Christian kool aid. I think it was more of a socio-cultural thing for me. I was born and raised as a Christian and went to church a lot, so I thought that’s just what you do. I never much cared for the church I grew up in, but was very enthusiastic about a church I found in high school. As I said above, I got involved quickly. Like most Christians, I had perpetual feelings of guilt. I never felt like I was good enough for God (read: conservative Christian far right culture) so I was went up for alter calls almost every week at church, trying to make myself worthy in the eyes of God. Talking to friends and family, I’m not the only one who felt like this. But it made me feel very guilty to be gay; I wanted to be cured. So I talked to my “mentors” at church about praying with me, etc.

Like most Christians, they subscribed to the belief that homosexuality is a “choice” and that the “gay lifestyle” is a very negative thing. They prayed with me for some kind of divine intervention to cure me. When no divine intervention came from their fictitious God, they removed me from every program I was involved in and socially isolated me to the point of excommunication. Since it is a big church in a big town, they couldn’t go as far as publicly excommunicating me but they made it uncomfortable to the point of forcing me to (voluntarily?) leave.

In the end I’m just thankful I live in California or I may have been sent to one of those horrible deprogramming camps that permanently damage people for the rest of their lives.

Here is the article in question, entitled: Michigan Church Outs, Then Expels Gay Man:

A man from Williamston Michigan is battling her church over his sexuality.

The man, who wishes not to have his name used, says that by discussing her sexuality with the pastor of Lighthouse Community Church in Williamston, a small bedroom community east of Lansing, he has been targeted for excommunication from the church.

In a June 28 email to the man, Pastor Thurm Payton wrote, “I want to make one more appeal to you to turn from the lifestyle you’ve chosen to deal with the feelings you have wrestled with for many years. I can’t escape the truth that you’ve taken a severe detour in God’s plan for how your life is to be lived.”

He further states,”I would deeply regret it if the effect of my trusting friendship with you was to slowly enable you to accept a lifestyle that is against God’s Word.”

But the man was not interested in denouncing his homosexuality, as Payton plead with him to do.

So when the man declined, Payton, evidently worried with accidentally “enabling” his homosexuality, decided in conjunction with pastoral leaders Jimmy Gretzinger, John Newman, Mark Harbison and Tom Blaylock that it was necessary to excommunicate the man.

Sounds like a story that happens to hundreds of thousands of LGBT people everyday. Except the “leadership team” decided that excommunication was not enough. The sent a four page letter to the congregation announcing the man, as well as a person accused of adultery, would be subjected to a public excommunication.

The letter outed the man to the church.

“This is literally a scarlet letter, designed to isolate and humiliate the members accused of impropriety,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is absurd that the church claims that its intent is not to injure the alleged sinners. They are clearly engaging in a vindictive game of mean-spirited psychological attacks causing grave harm to the individuals singled out and targeted.”

“This church has the right to hold self-righteous and backwards ideas on sexuality,” said Besen. “However, what they are doing is immoral and their actions should be brought to light. With such a medieval mindset, it should be no surprise that many Americans are turning away from such barbaric churches in droves.”

And the kicker to all this? The Williamston Public Schools are renting the middle school cafeteria to the church, thus supporting the group with tax payer funded locations.

Editor’s note: The gender of the person involved in this case was accidentally identified as female, when in fact the victim of the church’s excommunication is a male. We apologize for this error.

This is truly sad, that in this day and time, middle Americans are still so ignorant about LGBTQ issues. The worst part is that they don’t care about LGBTQ issues; most of them do not WANT to become educated on LGBTQ issues. In general, Christians pick and choose the parts of the bible that they want and ignore the parts that inconvenience them. I still fail to understand why Christians make such a big deal out of homosexuality but eat unclean meat, wear clothes of mixed fabric, work on Sundays, tolerate divorce and allow their wives to leave the house. If you read Leviticus all of these things are mentioned, but on these issues they take a liberal approach to Leviticus and decide that the things they dislike are no longer relevant. Maybe homosexuality is irrelevant today too?

Jesus was a loving man who never mentioned homosexuality once, on the contrary he blessed and loved Mary Magdalene – a prostitute. So why the witch hunt on “fags”? Shouldn’t Christians be focused on preserving marriage within their own church and preventing divorce? If marriage is such a sacred institution that they want to deny it to homosexual couples, then why not focus on making marriage more successful?

Here are some comments that were follow ups to this article, these two I found especially profound

The first one is by Dave Hershey:

Dear Pastor Thurm Payton,

I just read on a website about a gay man that you and your church excommunicated. I understand that you wish for him to change his sexual orientation. However, according to the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association, and nearly all other various medical, psychological and psychiatric organizations have stated that it is dangerous to alienate people based on their sexual orientation.

There are two things that your treatment of this man leads me to believe, you are not only going against what Jesus taught, which is love and acceptance (remember the prostitute Jesus saved from stoning?) and that by outing him to the entire congregation you are also a very vindictive person and untrustworthy person. (The shame should be ALL on you!)

I’m sure you have wondered why so many LGBT citizens have turned away from the church, it is this VERY reason! Because of the hatred shown toward them, and the lack of love and acceptance.

You and the pastoral leaders of your business (I refuse to refer to your business as a church because it is far from being a place of solace and peace as it should be) ought to be ashamed of your actions, but somehow I know you are likely not.

I would like to recommend a piece I read months ago that I think explains why so many LGBT citizens have left the church. And I also think it may help you understand more about the LGBT community as a whole and why we have rejected your “hate the sin, love the sinner” meme that you like to use. It can be found here: http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/04/02/21575

It is my hope that you will read this piece and open your eyes to the truth, and that is we are very loving and caring people. That we come from all walks of life. And no matter how much you want us to conform to YOUR worldview, that will never happen until you start accepting us for who and what we are, your fellow human beings, your neighbors, and members of your earthly family.

By the way, I would like one question answered for me, when did you make a conscious decision to be heterosexual? My guess is that you never had to make a conscious decision to be heterosexual, just as we never made a conscious decision to be LGBT.

Best Regards and may YOUR God have mercy on your soul!

The second one is by William Stoddart:

Right on, Dave.!!  I am in total agreement with your post comments.  There is absolutely no such thing as a, ‘GAY LIFESTYLE” anymore than there is a. “STRAIGHT LIFESTYLE.”   Homophobes delight in constantly using the word “lifestyle” as a part of their demagoguery.  To them “lifestyle” revolves entirely around whom a person is sexually attracted to.  I am positive that if you were to ask any straight male, “What kind of a lifestyle do you lead?”–that their solitaryanswer would not be, “I like to have sex with women.”  Any person’s sexual orientation is just one very small part of the tapestry which defines their life.  The homophobic use of the word “lifestyle” when referencing gays and lesbians is offensive and demeaning.  In a way it conveys the warped idea that all we think about, or do, 24 hours a day is to have sex.

Then, the equally offensive word constantly used by these homophobic evangelists is, “CHOICE..”   Scientific, medical, and biological studies have consistently concluded that being gay or lesbian is not a ‘CHOICE”—no more being born black, or being born with blue eyes is a ‘CHOICE”   Unfortunately, hard core homophobes, will never have the capacity to understand that sexual orientation IS NOT A CHOICE! It is the way are born.  Note that I did not use the phrase sexual ‘PREFERENCE”.   By sometimes using the word PREFERENCE instead of ORIENTATION, they intentionally confer the idea that we CHOSE to be the way we are.   When a homophobe engages me in their demented “choice” philosophy, I always ask them how they went about “choosing” to be straight?  I ask if they perhaps “flipped a coin.”   Or I may ask if they tried both types, and then decided that being intimate with a female felt the best. (kind of like trying on a pair of shoes)  Invariably, they are not able to explain why they are either going with, or married to a person of the opposite sex.  They will usually simply end the discussion with, “That’s just the way I am.”   So, if it’s so very easy for them to understand that “it’s just the way they are” why then is it so difficult for them to understand that our sexual orientation is, “just the way we are.”   If being gay or lesbian was truly a choice–there most likely would be none.   If it was simply a matter of choice, who would consciously choose to be gay—knowing in advance that they would face a life of constant ridicule and rejection?

Hopefully these articles are eye opening to you. Hopefully it helps you to see that homosexuality is something, although maybe not natural, isn’t a choice. Where do people get off thinking they can tell us to reject our innate urges and live a lie?

I read three great political editorials this morning:

An editorial in the New York Times – Addicted to Bush

An editorial in The Daily Kos – Why Liberals Should Love the 2nd Amendment

For those of you in San Diego, CA – Southwestern College’s Proper Snack Bar (addressing the corruption at Southwestern College)

As usual, politics in this country baffle me. President Obama has been getting it from every side lately. The liberals are after him, the gays are after him, the conservatives are REALLY after him. The guy just can’t win. Rather than accepting that America was already fucked up under Clinton and especially under Bush Jr., Americans decide to blame literally everything on President Obama.

Yes, Obama deregulated oil, the financial industry, mortgages and single handedly ruined the economy. Umm…no. The economy was already a mess, unemployment was already exponentially increasing, the war situation was already a mess and everyone was already unhappy. Obama cannot snap his fingers and fix things; he has been working hard and rather than getting support everyone is just ragging on him. Even the bailout that everyone attributes to Obama was in the works when Bush left office; Obama just signed it.

That said, President Obama worked hard to get comprehensive medical coverage for all Americans. I think he still ultimately sold out to the special interests of private insurance rather than passing socialized health like Europe, but he IS a politician still, we can’t have our cake and eat it too.

Tonight I was talking to one of my acquaintances and Obamacare came up. As usual, most of the general public is misinformed about it. He made the absurd assertion that “if you don’t have medical insurance, you get fined and go to jail”. That is not true. If you don’t have medical insurance, you do get taxed higher because the government (and ultimately the tax payers) have to pay the bill if you get injured and don’t pay for it. So in essence, you’re going to pay for medical insurance regardless, so why not save yourself the trouble and just make sure you’re covered?

I think of it like auto insurance. Most people wouldn’t dream of not having auto insurance. They want to be protected if something goes wrong, both for their sake and the sake of others. The same applies to health insurance. Under Obamacare, you can’t be denied and you can’t be charged hire rates for preexisting conditions. Every American from the healthy ones to the morbidly obese ones will pay around the same rate. So why not cover yourself?

This acquaintance says he refuses to get insurance and he refuses to pay a fine. He also refuses to go to jail. He also doesn’t believe in auto insurance and car registration. All I can do is shake my head. I don’t even think a headshake is appropriate, more like a facepalm.

I don’t understand where people get off thinking they can get in a car crash, chalk up $500,000+ in medical bills and then not pay them. Who do they think they are to expect the American public to pay their medical bills for them?

Here is an interesting excerpt from an interview with a CNN reporter and President Obama concerning Obamacare:

This is an excerpt from NewsBusters:

STEPHANOPOULOS: …during the campaign. Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don’t. How is that not a tax?

…. OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…

OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any…

…. STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…

…. STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.

Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.

President Obama says it best. It is not a tax. It is your duty as an American. I know people don’t like change, but sometimes change is good and medical insurance is something that all Americans should have.