I feel that I shouldn't have to tell people that I'm pretty much a liberal. mostly. At any rate, I definitely lean left.
Just saying.
If that somehow offends you, then I worry for the future, I really do.
Anyway, I was on facebook, and there's a group on there called "some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them" that I like because they post very cool quotes and sayings that are fun. So today - or yesterday - I forget, they had a link to another group called "Shut down FB accounts of homophobes and racists," which I don't really agree with, because you've got to let opponents get their ideas out there, because of...
1.) Free speech and
2.) If you shut them down, you're guilty of discrimination, and then more people will go to the opponent's side, because they're the underdogs and
3.) If they get their ideas out there, then hopefully more people will realize what total jerks they actually are.
But yeah.
So the comments on that - most of which I DID agree with and like - included this choice morsel...with which, obviously, I didn't:
-well God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve...and try as I may not to be...I know I can be a racist....a true racist I can agree they are a waste of skin....-
Do you understand my frustration?
I actually did a really huge paper on this for class once. Don't remember what grade I got on it, but it was a good paper. I thought so, anyway. But I have a great pastor at my church (United Methodist, by the way) who gave me one or two of the following points.
My argument:
Oh my god. That's one of the most irritating arguments out there. 1.) Only works on christians. 2.) There are at least two cases of same-sex relationships in the Bible. and no one gets smited. (Naomi and Ruth? Jonathan and David?) 3.) Also...IF god created adam and eve, he also doesn't like divorce. If we keep marriage "sacred" then divorce should be illegal. try getting THAT through congress. 4.) Do the words "love your neighbor" ring a bell? 5.) All of the bits in the Bible that are versus same-sex relationships...or that people USE against same-sex marriages are in the same section where we stone adulterers. And burn witches. I imagine the Wicca groups in the country would love that.
...
But really. Did you know that what Ruth tells Naomi is used in weddings today?
"Ruth says, "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17 NKJV)" --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ruth
Also - Further pointage...
There are TWO separate chapters of Genesis' beginnings story. One is where God creates Adam and Eve to procreate and multiply and etc. (Which is a definite problem right now, what with overpopulation. And The Catholic Church just sent India hurtling back into the dark ages by forbidding the teaching of birth control, which means that India's strained resources are even more strained. Thanks much, Bible)
The second is where God creates them to be "companions for each other". (This really gets to me in the series The Last Herald-Mage of Valdemar, by Mercedes Lackey (http://www.mercedeslackey.com/) You should read them.)
Also, I have always been a strong believer in the idea that you should leave people's lives ALONE.
More on this next post.
(EDITED: I never actually wrote about this. I have no idea why not. I think I was going to say something flammatory about abortion...but I can't remember.)
So yeah.
Officially sick of discrimination.
