Sunday, January 25, 2009
Chubby cheeks or the horrible alternative
Suppose I am a female living inside another female's uterus in January 2009. Whether I end this year wearing a diaper and having my chubby cheeks kissed and nuzzled, or in a landfill having been incinerated as medical waste depends largely on how much money my mother and her family have. This seems a horrible case of injustice, yet most of the Robed Emperors don't allow themselves to look at it that way. It's not a matter of law or courts or legislatures even, it's whether I am “wanted.” If today I am unwanted, I can still end up the year being nuzzled by a family unrelated to my birth mom, bless her heart, through the gift of adoption.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Radical Middle
Isn't there a Beatles song about dreaming about....please enlighten me with a comment, anonymous or otherwise. Anyway, my dream is buried in this exchange from sojourners
http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/2009/01/16/look-whos-praying-at-the-inauguration/?disqus_reply=5378002
A frequent problem is the oppressed becoming the oppressor. By framing gay issues as civil rights issues rather than religious disagreements, the trends you mention could well end up with me being despised as a bigot, much as many people now look down on a good 'ole boy with a Confederate flag on his pickup(i.e. assuming he's a racist). Legally, a sermon on the Ten Commandments could be viewed by a court sympathetic to GLBT issues as an incitement for a drunk to beat up a gay person in a bar nearby that evening. If such a crime actually occurred, the victim could sue and compel the pastor/church to spend a fortune on a legal defense. In California a fertility clinic was successfully sued for referring a lesbian couple to a different clinic for religious reasons. Also in California, people are being denied their right to vote in citizen petitions. So as fervently as I want you to be physically safe, I don't support much of what is now occurring. Your psychological well-being is important, but freedom and the democratic process are important to the nation as a whole.
A plea for Christians to work for the physical safety of GLBT folk overseas even as we oppose gay marriage here in the US for religious reasons. This is the sort of radical middle thing that should appeal to Sojourners Magazine; unfortunately they are more just the Christian left these days. Which is their right, of course, but a disappointment to folks like me who were big fans of Jim Wallis back in the 1980's
I would also like to affirm JamesM: "So many people dehumanize others and think that that is what they are called to do. Maybe if they had a real heart-to-heart with people who have experienced what you have, they would change their tune."///More on hate crimes:Perhaps you[a person I'm debating on sojo.net] support hate crimes legislation for honorable reasons. I oppose it from the reasons given by this Jewish letter writer, published in response to Cornel West: September 29, 2007
CORNEL WEST and Sylvia Rhue's arguments about hate crimes legislation border on hatred itself, such as when they accuse people who oppose this legislation as being guilty of "falsehoods and bigotry" ("Fabricated fears about hate crimes legislation," Op-ed, Sept. 25).
Hate crimes legislation is unnecessary. A crime is a crime. Hate is a motive. Making a motive a crime is legislating thought. Matthew Shepard was murdered. That was the crime. Perhaps hatred of homosexuals was the motive. Every crime has a motive. Greed can cause theft. Jealousy can cause people to kill the lovers of their mates. Anger can lead to assault and battery. Anger, jealousy, and greed are not crimes. Assault and battery, murder, and theft are crimes. Hate also should not be a crime. We need to keep our senses, even if we don't like the reason that someone commits a crime.
B. M. C.
http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/2009/01/16/look-whos-praying-at-the-inauguration/?disqus_reply=5378002
A frequent problem is the oppressed becoming the oppressor. By framing gay issues as civil rights issues rather than religious disagreements, the trends you mention could well end up with me being despised as a bigot, much as many people now look down on a good 'ole boy with a Confederate flag on his pickup(i.e. assuming he's a racist). Legally, a sermon on the Ten Commandments could be viewed by a court sympathetic to GLBT issues as an incitement for a drunk to beat up a gay person in a bar nearby that evening. If such a crime actually occurred, the victim could sue and compel the pastor/church to spend a fortune on a legal defense. In California a fertility clinic was successfully sued for referring a lesbian couple to a different clinic for religious reasons. Also in California, people are being denied their right to vote in citizen petitions. So as fervently as I want you to be physically safe, I don't support much of what is now occurring. Your psychological well-being is important, but freedom and the democratic process are important to the nation as a whole.
A plea for Christians to work for the physical safety of GLBT folk overseas even as we oppose gay marriage here in the US for religious reasons. This is the sort of radical middle thing that should appeal to Sojourners Magazine; unfortunately they are more just the Christian left these days. Which is their right, of course, but a disappointment to folks like me who were big fans of Jim Wallis back in the 1980's
I would also like to affirm JamesM: "So many people dehumanize others and think that that is what they are called to do. Maybe if they had a real heart-to-heart with people who have experienced what you have, they would change their tune."///More on hate crimes:Perhaps you[a person I'm debating on sojo.net] support hate crimes legislation for honorable reasons. I oppose it from the reasons given by this Jewish letter writer, published in response to Cornel West: September 29, 2007
CORNEL WEST and Sylvia Rhue's arguments about hate crimes legislation border on hatred itself, such as when they accuse people who oppose this legislation as being guilty of "falsehoods and bigotry" ("Fabricated fears about hate crimes legislation," Op-ed, Sept. 25).
Hate crimes legislation is unnecessary. A crime is a crime. Hate is a motive. Making a motive a crime is legislating thought. Matthew Shepard was murdered. That was the crime. Perhaps hatred of homosexuals was the motive. Every crime has a motive. Greed can cause theft. Jealousy can cause people to kill the lovers of their mates. Anger can lead to assault and battery. Anger, jealousy, and greed are not crimes. Assault and battery, murder, and theft are crimes. Hate also should not be a crime. We need to keep our senses, even if we don't like the reason that someone commits a crime.
B. M. C.
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