Your argument is invalid - The NOH8 trial

The past few days I have been following The Advocate's live tweets from the NOH8 trials.  Today the testimony just completely blew my mind as far as it's total lack of intelligent thought processes and conclusions.  I know, I do not have a college degree.  I took a half year of Sociology my Senior year in high school and zero Psych courses but still I know that all I kept hearing today was "1+1 = fish".

Why are churches getting involved in the politics of civil rights?  Gay "marriage" is a fight for government and legal recognition not a church ceremony.  The LGBT community wants nothing more than the same tax breaks a heterosexual couple gets for having a "marriage license" on file at the local town hall along with job protection, health benefits and legal protection of their estates for their partners and children.  There a millions of Americans who are "married" in civil ceremonies by justices of the peace.  There is no religious value at all, just the sealing of the document they just signed that gives them governmental and legal sanction of their couplehood.  Just like having an affidavit witnessed by an officer of the court.  They ask all the requisite questions and you both sign the document and the notary seals it.

No branch of the U.S. government nor any state or local agency can mandate that a church perform a religious ceremony of any kind including weddings.  They only require that clergy also be certified as Justices of the Peace so they can legally witness the marriage license. (see comment below-this is not necessarily a true fact. CT does not require JP status for clergy.  Feel free to post your state's statutes on this.  Thank you) It's very frustrating that Christians and Jews can not seem to differentiate between "marriage" and "wedding".  I'm not sure what Muslims call their coupling ritual so I apologize for not including it. 

Then to take it a step further.  Religious groups want to bring this into a "family" realm by stating that same sex marriage destroys the American family.  Really?  If a child is raised in a loving household, has parents who make sure they are safely housed and sent to school every day and living within the law, what's the issue?  How about deadbeat dads and men who have just abdicated as parents/bread winners?  From personal experience I think they do more damage to families.  And while we're casting stones, there are numerous Catholic organizations fighting gay "marriage" who are sitting back saying nothing about the pedophiles within their clergy.  Don't you think that puts a far bigger strain on a family and children if parents protect the person who is molesting their kids?  Just sayin' people.  And as a single-parent I beg the court's indulgence by asking how is my situation any stronger family unit than a same-sex pair raising kids?  Hey!  They have the advantage of two incomes and the probability of one of them being physically and emotionally available to their children more often that I do.

So lets go back to same-sex marriage having a negative affect on heterosexual marriages.  How?  Because less LGBT's will hide in a straight marriage because of the social and psychological strain of living out?  Or because they will show straight couples up with the longevity of their relationships.  They don't have to wait for a major family issue to stress their relationship because they have a huge stress-factor going in...being LGBT people.  They've already lived their lives before they were a couple with all the problems and stigma that come the fact of realizing they're not "normal".  Then to make it a non-traditional coupling.  Twice the stress.  So they tend to do very good with the bumps and bruises that come with keeping a relationship vibrant and healthy.  Many same-sex couples stay together for life and have a better track record of doing so than straights.  And if they do split that is no reason for self-righteous straights to go "Oh look.  See they are promiscuous"  Bull shit!! What about your 14-year-old slut daughter you let out of the house in a mini-skirt and tank top that has more than one condom in her purse or your spouse whose had a mistress for the past ten years?

Which brings us to the family thing.  First, I'll pick up from the last paragraph...straight does not equal good parents.  Done!  Second, straight parents can produce gay children.  In fact most LGBT kids come out of heterosexual homes.  As for same-sex couples only producing LGBT kids?  Really?  Come on.  Really?  If sexuality is genetic (which I do believe) any child of a gay or lesbian couple, has a parent of the opposite sex. Lesbians will have a sperm donor or will adopt.  Gay men will have a surrogate mother or will adopt.  The conceived children will have the genes of both its parents and their family history so even if the sperm donor or surrogate are also genetically identified as non-heterosexual that parent's parents and the member of the same-sex couple providing the sperm or egg may carry the heterosexual gene and based on historic figures, the resulting child is more apt to be bisexually or heterosexually identified than homosexually.

As far as socialization, just because a child is raised in a gay home doesn't mean they'll be gay.  More likely just more healthily tolerant.  Kids go to school.  They know there are more kids from straight households or single-parent households than from homes like theirs with two moms or two dads.  Of course with the current social climate they will be made to feel different, weird, etc. by fellow students, faculty and administration even though they shouldn't be.  As for the two moms or two dads raising their kids to be LGBT?  Trust me, not even gay parents wish that on their kids and the kids will experience it first hand before they go to school in the way that other people treat their parents.  So for me...if anything a same-sex parented family is stronger, more tolerant, and has a better grasp on how the Divine wishes this world would work.  Wanna play the "God card" religious people?  Gay/Lesbian households are living closer to your scriptures than you are because they are not teaching their kids to build walls or barriers or create labels for other people.  They're teaching them to forgive and understand and love people even in those people's ignorance. 

To the witnesses in this trial...your argument is invalid.  If run through simple tests of validity or just common sense, they don't hold water.  So just stop wasting taxpayers money.  Taxpayers?  Leave your religious crap at the door when voting for legislatures.  Providing any minority with the same freedoms you enjoy in "the land of the free" is just the right thing to do no matter what Higher Power you subscribe to.  The LGBT community is not harming you.  They are not robbing your house or burning it down.  They are not stealing your stuff.  They are not physically harming you or your children.  Validating them and their rights does not mean they're going to try to "turn" your kids.  Your children are in far more danger from pedophiles, rapists and kidnappers.  No!  Your kids are far more apt to get hit by a car or succumb to alcohol poisoning in an evening of underage drinking you sanctioned in your basement.  Your children are more susceptible to  STD's from playing at unprotected sex with a member of the opposite gender.  Your daughters are at a higher risk of becoming pregnant before they turn 18 than discovering they are lesbians.  Your sons have a higher probability of going to jail for possession of illegal drugs, dui, or causing a major accident by driving recklessly than facing that he gender-identifies as female and starts the agonizing journey of a transsexual.  Your arguments are invalid.

Walking the talk - Ray Vivier

Homeless veteran laid to rest after saving lives

This is how it's supposed to go people.  Put yourself and your puney wants on the backburner to help "the least of these".  The people this man saved didn't care that he was a recovered alcoholic who lived in a shanty most of his life.  Actually, they didn't much care that he had honorably served his country.  What mattered was that this man didn't take a second thought for himself and saved their lives.

In turn, he didn't take time to think about what color the people he saved were or how much money they made or what religion they were.  He didn't even give a shit who they slept with.  The point was that some selfish asshole decided to set their home on fire and they needed to be saved.  Their lives were more important than the building or even his own life.  He only took enough time to note that his body and mind were able enough to help total strangers.

May we all be grateful to the people who he had affected in the past that came forward to make sure that he had an honorable and respectful internment. Sounds a little like some friends of that guy who set the original example for this kind a stuff a long time ago doesn't it?  Think about it....no labels, no barriers, no terms or conditions...just unconditional love.

Really Pat Robertson? Is your God that small?

Yeah, you keep striking fear into the hearts of people and crushing their self-esteem Mr. Robertson.  You're really doing the work of a divine and holy entity.

STOP!!  And people who are following this shit!!! Wake the fuck up!!!  A man preaching that The Fates have a bone to pick with the Haitians but wait a couple of hundred years and a whole lot of generations later to punish them?  Really?  Reeeeally Pat?  Really CBN followers?  Even the ancient Pagans felt that some acts of nature were indeed their Gods getting a bit cranky with them but it was for something they fucked up within the last year or two at the most.  Their deities didn't hold a grudge for a couple of centuries or even a decade. 

I think one of the things that is really disturbing me is that Pat Robertson is affecting educated Americans in the 21st Century.  We are not plebes under Roman rule who can't read and allow the salesman to decide how many sheckles he'll take from our hands for a purchase because we can't count.  We are not in the Middle Ages in Europe where the priest said "Pay me ten ducats and God will forgive you" and the illiterate peasants who didn't speak or read formal Latin so they had no clue what the Mass was saying, paid!  NO PEOPLE!!!  You live in post Revolutionary War America where Thomas Jefferson established a public education system to provide an educated electorate to support the new democratic republic he and his cronies in the Continental Congress had created.  If you don't know how to read and write it is only your own fault in the end.  The school was there.  It was free.  The teachers were in the school.  And more importantly than teaching you how to read, write and work with numbers....they taught you how to use you fucking BRAIN...THE SAME ONE THAT GOD GAVE YOU!! 

You want to talk SIN?  Ok, how about this.  You were born with about three pounds of functioning gray matter in your head.  Yes, there are some people that have not been equally blessed.  However, The Fates have provided them with different talents and abilities and fortunately one of them is not being blind followers of false prophets.  Yeah, yeah, there are parents of mentally and physically challenged kids who take them to church hoping they will be healed or so other crap.  But I find most of them grow up and decide to ask the Gods to show them their strengths in the conditions they are in and plug on.  But don't comment on this blog that there are fundie handicapped people...yeah, I know there are some but we're talking about you, who has enough mental and physical capacity to turn on a computer, get internet service, sign on and read this.  So how do you feel The Great Spirit, Divine and Benevolent feels about you blindly following a person who is claiming to speak the mind of this Sacred Being and not questioning the fact that when Mr. Robertson and his ilk get to the bottom line-God is this tiny little cartoon character who is screaming in a squeaky little voice at some six foot something human going "I'm gonna get you  You wait!"   Really?  Really? 

See in my book, GOD is HUGE.  It's the entire universe.  It surrounds us, it supports us and it fills us.  IT LOVES US!!!  Earthquakes, fire, hurricanes...natural occurances people.  War, terrorists, murderers, theives...people with selfish motives and personal agendas.  NOT GOD!!!

Please wake up.  See that these preachers, etc. are teaching a false doctrine.  It's not about separation.  It's not about isolationism.  It's not about a golden ticket.  It's about getting off your ass, getting over your fear and being a loving human being.  That is the greatest gift you can give back to God to say thanks for the life that The Divine gave you.  Want to serve "the purpose"?  Love each other and don't continue to feed this charleton's or any other's egos. 

Jesus under the couch and the Holy Spirit in the hall closet

So you found Jesus?  Really?  Like under the couch?

Seriously people, it's all about the spiritual not about a guy.  It's not who he was.  It was what he said and how he lived and you're doing it wrong in my book.

To me the Divine is something huge and genderless but genderful.  It may be many beings that fit together like a puzzle to make that one Great Spirit or it is just one gianormous Sacred thing.  It is sacred and holy because it created all this.  Alllll this.  Go outside now that the sun has set and look up.  If you're lucky enough to be somewhere with minimal light pollution you can see a bit of the Milky Way.  Think about earlier members of the human family before electricity.  The vastness of the night sky.  Now maybe you can grasp their awe of the Fates.  No science to explain lightening or earthquakes so there was respect for that which surrounded them and inhabited the earth beneath them.  Is it any wonder they paid homage and made sacrifice to try to assure one more day of life?  Yes, they had a healthy respect for all of creation and the thing that created it. 

It's not about a book.  Especially a book that describe this tiny, jealous and immature "diety" that, in one breath states that it loves its creation but in the other tells the beings it "created in its image" to create labels and classes and castes and not have anything to do with this group or that.  A holy being that tempts his creatures with the fruit of a tree and when they do break the rule the first thing they notice is that they're naked?

Ok, I was going to do some more research on Genesis but the crazy contradictions after the original creation of the heavens and earth are ridiculuos.  I got angry with the "man leaving mother, woman leaving home" or whatever.  If they were the first two people that meant absolutely nothing to them.  Oh and need we forget about Caine being sent to the Land of Nod.  And just where the hell did those people and that country come from because it sure does sound like they'd be around a while before Caine offed his brother. 

See?  The book is kind of irrelevant and there are equal conflicts of information and dumb rules in the Koran too.  Bottom line is that all three religions that do the "one god" thing have come up with this really tiny, petty, disrespectful and cliquey diety.  Then the Christians throw in this one guy who supposedly is carrying the entire outcome of the world on his shoulders and all you have to do is believe he's the son of God to get Divine parole into heaven no matter how big a shit you are and how little you're doing to support your piece of the planet/mankind.  Mind you they're not saying to look at the dude's life and see  that maybe this is a road map for better living?  That maybe you're better off if you live like him?

Here's the point.  I've made a lot of mistakes and done a lot of stupid things to get people to like me but I was fortunate to be blessed with a living angel when I was 17.  That angel taught me about the spiritual and the supernatural.  He showed me some very interesting things about that Jesus guy.  But then my angel and I parted ways.  I continued on a road of being a people pleaser and self-loser for over thirty-five years.  The selflessness wasn't out of any concern for anyone else.  I just wanted people to like me so I became a hundred different people that weren't me.  But somewhere way down inside me there was a flame.  And it always reminded me that there was something else.  Something I needed to stay connected to.  I attended a lot of different churches when I was not in the company of spiritual people trying to find the thing that fed that flame.  I didn't find it in any of them.  In fact in some of those supposed houses of God I found nothing but hate, elitism and bigotry.  For all their profession of charismaticism, they were the farthest thing from spiritual.  They did a lot of damage to me. 

I found my way back to the path though and here's what I see.  The Jesus-guy in my eyes is a concept person.  Whether or not he was a flesh and blood person doesn't matter.  It was the example that was important.  "He who believeth in me shall have life everlasting"....all of us who believe in the concept and put it in practice will live a legacy that will live on for lifetimes.  And what is the concept?  Be kind.  Love your neighbor as yourself...no matter what color they are, their age, how much money they have or have not, where or even if they go to church, who they hang out with, etc., etc.  "What you did for the least of these".  We're supposed to clothe, feed, minister to and visit all of them.  ALL OF THEM.  Again, no boundaries.  No if's.  No but's.  ALL OF THEM.  Finally  "Do unto others as you would have them do to you"  So if you want them to legistlate who and how you love then do it to them.  If you want to be treated differently because of your race, creed or gender then do it to your neighbor.  And when the time comes and it comes down to your life to save your neighbor's?  Will you give it a second-thought?  THAT'S THE JESUS GUY.  It's not a person, it's YOU.  Or you if you're doing it right. 

A good man (or woman)?  Don't take what's not yours.  Don't put others in danger.  Don't hit people.  Definitely don't kill them.  Things like lust and greed?  Those are just life wasters.  Covetting?  Same deal.  If you want sex, money, a house like the guy down the street?  Don't sit home in front of your TV being grumpy.  Figure out how to change your situation.  Lust is cheap.  Try love.  Heck then you get sex with emotional and psychological support.  You get someone to share the load and the journey with.  Gluttony?  Yeah cuz you're an asshole who's pigging out while the guy on the park bench hasn't eaten in a week.  You're just filling the empty spots in your heart, mind and soul with food.  How about buying another sandwich and finding a hungry someone to share it with.  They're also hungry for a friend. 

It's not about a building or the people that reside in it a few hours a week.  It's not about what they read from a book or songs that they sing.  It's not the hours wasted in study of "holy scriptures".  It's practicing the art of living in love.  And there is something around us.  It is real, and huge and loves us back and you can tap into it to find out why that Being put you here because that's the bonus card to this life.  The Divine hopes that we have a second to really open ourselves up and try to figure out what our personal gift is and what we're supposed to do with it. 

Religious people have spent way too many years building dogma and doctrine that scares people way from exploring the spirit realm.  Yes, there are bad things but if we were taught how to descern there is so much good power that needs to be tapped to heal this fucked up world.  Open your heart, your mind and your spirit.  Listen.  Look.  Learn. 

Activism and Advocacy are not sexy...

...Or "Posers go home!"

The Civil Rights movement is not hip.  It's not cool.  I'd challenge you to find even a few posers doing it to be part of the "in crowd".  Oh, what's that you say?  You can rattle off a list of celebs that are involved in one camp or another.  Really?  Look closer.  They are people who have personal stakes in the group they are advocating.  Entertainers?  Yes, most of them were members of the music nerd/drama geek/art dweebs in high school.  They just found their balls to actually make money being the weird kids.  Big business execs?  Yeah, they were the math, language, civics and science kids in their teens.  They and the afore mentioned groups tended to mingle and blur in their adolescence.  Athletes?  Well really I find there is only one group that might have believably "fought" at one time but do so rarely now that their part of the fight was "won"...African American professional athletes.  The rest?  Nope.  Can't think of any off the top of my head nor members of any team's cheer squads.  Beauty queens? They really get me because if not for the queer nation, pagents wouldn't exist but those gals are not the most supportive of their twinks.

So really...where are the "popular" kids when it comes to standing shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTs, the African-Americans, the Latin community, the Jews, the Muslims, the pagans, women?  Yeah...interesting huh?

Which brings me to my point.  There is a group, albeit small, that has emerged from "middle America" who are supposedly now die-hard "queer peers".  On the surface this would seem to be a noble act of sacrifice.  However, it is not and it could have some very negative results if allowed to continue.  This group, who had never heard the term "fag hag" before early last summer now seem to think that they are deserving of the title...while still attending their little evangelical storefront holy roller churches, living their bigoted little lives in their white-bread hometowns and scorn the "towel heads" that run the local 7-11.  They sing the battle cry of "Marriage for all" on Twitter, fan-sites and blog posts/comments.  They send letters/emails to state representatives and U.S. congress people who represent districts far from their own.  They throw the word "homophobe" around when ever they get the chance.  How would they react if one of their kids or siblings came out?

STOP!!!!  You are doing it wrong!!

First let me take the simple thing.  "Queer peers".  Oh, you've never heard that term?  Fag hags are part of that division of the LGBT civil rights army.  We are the straight advocates for the queer nation.  We are PFLAG.  We are GSA.  We are even GLAAD (despite some of their recent short-comings in a certain incident).  We have family, friends and co-workers who are LGBT and we support them, love them and treat them like anyone else...like human beings deserving of love and respect.

Posing as an advocate from the gay tribe is a giantic act of disrespect.  Oh!  Did I call you a poser?  Yeah...yeah I went there.  See the thing is...you were introduced to a gay man who isn't a walking stereotype.   And by the way...most lesbians, gays, bi's and transexuals are not stereotypes.  That's why you say you've never known a gay person...because the ones you have met...blend in with all the other people.  Sadly they've learned societal camoflage along with every other shunned group.  But just so we're clear, even if they were accepted, you wouldn't be seeing a whole lot of outward changes other than a couple out and about holding hands, sharing a peck on the cheek or a hug.  Not all lesbians live in flannel and work boots and not all gay men wear tight jeans, v-neck t's and loafers without socks.

But back to that exotic cat (thanks Fae) that you give the impression you'd like to see uncaged.  The truth is the only reason you'd let him in your house is if you thought he was there to seduce you...(1) you're the wrong sex and (2) most of you are old enough to be his mom.  So really what's going on here is that he's a novelty to you because you've never been this close to an openly gay man and he's especially titilating because you "discovered" him though a TV show that up until now pumped out cookie-cutter, second-rate recording artists.  I have so many words in my head to speak of all your hypocrisy and arrogance.  I heard you all get all upset over the young man's photoshoot for a certain gentleman's fashion magazine.  You were, in truth offended that the gay boy was in erotic poses with a woman.  What you were really saying is "Oh pretty freak, we love when you spark our libidos from the stage but how dare you put your nasty queer hands on that pretty straight girl".  Sure you tried to cover it up with "I wish I was her."  What will happen when this singer is invited to revisit his acting routes and place out a romantic scene with a woman?  Do you still watch How I Met Your Mother after Neil Patrick Harris came out.  Did you stop watching old Rock Hudson romance movies when his homosexuality was revealed posthumously?  I think a few of you may have.

All I can say is that next week I hope you crawl back into your television sets and get wrapped up in selecting the next best thing and leave the gay community alone.  They're much better off without you.