![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThe weather smells tonight. That damp smell, that is wet. With a bit of lily thrown in. Like a pool without the cholrine or a shower. Three days straight of rain. This summer it rains for five days straight, takes a break over the weekends, then starts right up again. I feel like I am living in Seattle. And this ahem is the reason I don't live in Seattle. I require sunshine dammit.
Read two things in the morning paper today. The first made me laugh, the second made me think - about power, human rights and what is really really wrong with religion in our country.
The first was about New York State politics. Not sure anyone outside of NY has been following this? A couple of weeks back the Republican Party staged a "coup" in the Senate, and ousted the Majority Leader and the Democrat control. It was 32/30 - Democrate. But two Senators from NYC (one a Democrat from the Bronx) and the other from Elmhurst (Queens) - decided to switch parties in exchange for better positions, ie. a committee position and a majority leader position. The Democrats were furious and protested, refusing to acknowledge the switch and have locked the Republicans out of the Senate Chambers and refuse to turn over the keys. The Republicans insist they'll just convene in the hallway, no problem. Meanwhile the governor declares he is not leaving Albany or the State until the Democrat Majority is restored or at least order is. The two guys who switched? One is under investigation for finance fraud and the other for domestic abuse, he allegedly slashed his girlfriend across the face. As a result State Government has ground to a halt, they haven't balanced the budget, the Gay marriage act has been put on hold, and the governor's economic diversity package is up in the air.
Have decided to laugh at this, because what else can one do? Also is it just me, or are we stuck in high school still? Or maybe there's something to that old adage - all systems lead to chaos? Eventually?
The second was an interesting opinion piece by a guy against the gay marriage equality act.
This week the Metro is covering the gay marriage debate from multiple perspectives - because, NY State is still debating the issue. Yes, the Northeast has okayed it. But New York can't make up its collective mind on the issue. Yesterday they had opinion pieces from the Gay and Black Perspective. Today it is from the anti-same sex marriage perspective. One article states that proposition 8 supporters don't want to be called bigots. They aren't against gays having rights. Or civil unions per se. They are against defining marriage as anything but a union between a man and a woman. Here's the quote:
"Marriage has a definition that does not include two men or two women. It's like, if someone found a new color, they can't call it blue. Blue already exists." But does he support any kind of legal recongitionof same-sex couples? "Sure as long as they pay taxes."
"I believe that all states should get out of the marriage business and issue only civil union licenses with equal rights for all citizens. If someone wants a marriage ceremony, they can do it in a church." [Uhm, we already do that. We just restrict it to heterosexuals.]
"I'm happy the California Supreme Court upheld the vote because it was a lawful expression of the majority." [Yes, people said the same thing about the Jim Crow Laws, slavery, and women not having the right to vote. Seriously, does anyone study history any more? Or do they just google everything on wiki?]
[Homosexuals do want to get married in churchs, they want to celebrate their union. Their love. Why is that a problem? Why would any Christian be against someone celebrating love? Well...article two written by this Dalrymple dude explains why.]
And here's the second article by Timothy Dalrymple.
"The Christian views of the sanctity of marriage and the potential harm of homosexual marriage arise from the basic Christian convictions on what it means to be human. The Bible, in this view, teaches that we, men for women and women for men, are made to find partnership and companionship in one another not in spite of, but because of our differences. It is essential to the power of marriage that it conjoins male and female, since God uses our differences to shape us and make us one flesh. But also in the Christian view, we find our deepest fulfillment and become most deeply ourselves, in learning to love across the deepest divide.
We can no more revise the basis of marriage than we can revise laws governing atoms. Societies may shape marriage differently, but the intrinsic need of male and female for each other is written into the created order.
Thus the traditional Christian is concerned for several possible harms if the understanding of marriage is revised. First - and potentially most offensive - is the concern for gays themselves as they pursue lives which cannot lead to complete wholeness and healing. Second is the concern that more children will be led astray from God's design for marriage. The third is that society as a whole will suffer. Traditional Christians generally see homosexual marriage not as an extension of the civil rights struggle, but rather as an extension of the sexual revolution [female rights], which they believe has done immense damage to the structure of the family.
Heterosexuals, of course, have failed to fulfill the ideal of marriage. But for the Christian, this is the reason to restore the ideal, not abandon it."
Sigh. As much as I like the whole Greek (and it is Greek by the way, not Biblical) that marriage is the unity of two halves. It's the Aristophenes' (at least I think it was Aristophenes) theory that people were split in half and looking for their other half. And once they find it, they are whole. I've learned it is so not true, and certainly not for everyone. That's a romantic pipe dream.
I'm getting the feeling that the best way to fight this might be to just take away or separate all the legal rights that come with marriage as a religious union. In other words, yes you can get married in church but from a legal standpoint unless you have a license from the state authorizing a civil union it means absolutely nothing legally. Your spouse does not collect your life insurance, you can't get spousal health benefits, etc. Oh, wait, we already have that. You can get married in a church by a priest, but if you do not have a marriage license issued by the state, and/or the priest is not licensed by the state - you are not recognized as being legally married by the state. But if you get the marriage license and never do the ceremony? You are more or less considered married by the state. Civil unions =legal marriage. Purely religious unions do not equal legal marriage. So, Let's just take it one step further and make the religious ceremony completely and utterly meaningless from a legal perspective. No one but a state representative is authorized to grant a marriage license, no priest, rabbi, etc can grant one. That is what we should do. And to a small degree it is what we are doing already.
The church really doesn't mean anything from a legal perspective - you can get divorced without the church, you can dissolve property and in some states such as California you are considered a common-law marriage with shared property even if you never get a license or are married in a church - all you need to do is live together for a certain period of time. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie under California Law are considered married for example. The same-sex marriage act is basically saying homosexuals and heterosexuals are recognized as a civil union by the state. They are married under the state's laws.
The last time I checked, the US Constitution states there is a separation of church and state. I'm guessing a bunch of people have forgotten why that is, and why it has to be. We do not want religion dictacting what we can or cannot do. If you think that is something you want, go back and re-read your history books. People often use their religious beliefs to justify enforcing their views on to others in increasingly nasty ways.
As a heterosexual and a Christian, I am deeply shamed of the extent that many so-called Christians have used their religion to control and exert power over others.
And another reaction to it: http://mcornwell.typepad.com/mikes_blog/
I did not write my query letter again - have until June 20, when I'm going to share it with the writing group I've joined. But I wrote this...which I'd intended to leave opinion free - ie, my opinion not on it, but being me, I apparently found that impossible.
Read two things in the morning paper today. The first made me laugh, the second made me think - about power, human rights and what is really really wrong with religion in our country.
The first was about New York State politics. Not sure anyone outside of NY has been following this? A couple of weeks back the Republican Party staged a "coup" in the Senate, and ousted the Majority Leader and the Democrat control. It was 32/30 - Democrate. But two Senators from NYC (one a Democrat from the Bronx) and the other from Elmhurst (Queens) - decided to switch parties in exchange for better positions, ie. a committee position and a majority leader position. The Democrats were furious and protested, refusing to acknowledge the switch and have locked the Republicans out of the Senate Chambers and refuse to turn over the keys. The Republicans insist they'll just convene in the hallway, no problem. Meanwhile the governor declares he is not leaving Albany or the State until the Democrat Majority is restored or at least order is. The two guys who switched? One is under investigation for finance fraud and the other for domestic abuse, he allegedly slashed his girlfriend across the face. As a result State Government has ground to a halt, they haven't balanced the budget, the Gay marriage act has been put on hold, and the governor's economic diversity package is up in the air.
Have decided to laugh at this, because what else can one do? Also is it just me, or are we stuck in high school still? Or maybe there's something to that old adage - all systems lead to chaos? Eventually?
The second was an interesting opinion piece by a guy against the gay marriage equality act.
This week the Metro is covering the gay marriage debate from multiple perspectives - because, NY State is still debating the issue. Yes, the Northeast has okayed it. But New York can't make up its collective mind on the issue. Yesterday they had opinion pieces from the Gay and Black Perspective. Today it is from the anti-same sex marriage perspective. One article states that proposition 8 supporters don't want to be called bigots. They aren't against gays having rights. Or civil unions per se. They are against defining marriage as anything but a union between a man and a woman. Here's the quote:
"Marriage has a definition that does not include two men or two women. It's like, if someone found a new color, they can't call it blue. Blue already exists." But does he support any kind of legal recongitionof same-sex couples? "Sure as long as they pay taxes."
"I believe that all states should get out of the marriage business and issue only civil union licenses with equal rights for all citizens. If someone wants a marriage ceremony, they can do it in a church." [Uhm, we already do that. We just restrict it to heterosexuals.]
"I'm happy the California Supreme Court upheld the vote because it was a lawful expression of the majority." [Yes, people said the same thing about the Jim Crow Laws, slavery, and women not having the right to vote. Seriously, does anyone study history any more? Or do they just google everything on wiki?]
[Homosexuals do want to get married in churchs, they want to celebrate their union. Their love. Why is that a problem? Why would any Christian be against someone celebrating love? Well...article two written by this Dalrymple dude explains why.]
And here's the second article by Timothy Dalrymple.
"The Christian views of the sanctity of marriage and the potential harm of homosexual marriage arise from the basic Christian convictions on what it means to be human. The Bible, in this view, teaches that we, men for women and women for men, are made to find partnership and companionship in one another not in spite of, but because of our differences. It is essential to the power of marriage that it conjoins male and female, since God uses our differences to shape us and make us one flesh. But also in the Christian view, we find our deepest fulfillment and become most deeply ourselves, in learning to love across the deepest divide.
We can no more revise the basis of marriage than we can revise laws governing atoms. Societies may shape marriage differently, but the intrinsic need of male and female for each other is written into the created order.
Thus the traditional Christian is concerned for several possible harms if the understanding of marriage is revised. First - and potentially most offensive - is the concern for gays themselves as they pursue lives which cannot lead to complete wholeness and healing. Second is the concern that more children will be led astray from God's design for marriage. The third is that society as a whole will suffer. Traditional Christians generally see homosexual marriage not as an extension of the civil rights struggle, but rather as an extension of the sexual revolution [female rights], which they believe has done immense damage to the structure of the family.
Heterosexuals, of course, have failed to fulfill the ideal of marriage. But for the Christian, this is the reason to restore the ideal, not abandon it."
Sigh. As much as I like the whole Greek (and it is Greek by the way, not Biblical) that marriage is the unity of two halves. It's the Aristophenes' (at least I think it was Aristophenes) theory that people were split in half and looking for their other half. And once they find it, they are whole. I've learned it is so not true, and certainly not for everyone. That's a romantic pipe dream.
I'm getting the feeling that the best way to fight this might be to just take away or separate all the legal rights that come with marriage as a religious union. In other words, yes you can get married in church but from a legal standpoint unless you have a license from the state authorizing a civil union it means absolutely nothing legally. Your spouse does not collect your life insurance, you can't get spousal health benefits, etc. Oh, wait, we already have that. You can get married in a church by a priest, but if you do not have a marriage license issued by the state, and/or the priest is not licensed by the state - you are not recognized as being legally married by the state. But if you get the marriage license and never do the ceremony? You are more or less considered married by the state. Civil unions =legal marriage. Purely religious unions do not equal legal marriage. So, Let's just take it one step further and make the religious ceremony completely and utterly meaningless from a legal perspective. No one but a state representative is authorized to grant a marriage license, no priest, rabbi, etc can grant one. That is what we should do. And to a small degree it is what we are doing already.
The church really doesn't mean anything from a legal perspective - you can get divorced without the church, you can dissolve property and in some states such as California you are considered a common-law marriage with shared property even if you never get a license or are married in a church - all you need to do is live together for a certain period of time. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie under California Law are considered married for example. The same-sex marriage act is basically saying homosexuals and heterosexuals are recognized as a civil union by the state. They are married under the state's laws.
The last time I checked, the US Constitution states there is a separation of church and state. I'm guessing a bunch of people have forgotten why that is, and why it has to be. We do not want religion dictacting what we can or cannot do. If you think that is something you want, go back and re-read your history books. People often use their religious beliefs to justify enforcing their views on to others in increasingly nasty ways.
As a heterosexual and a Christian, I am deeply shamed of the extent that many so-called Christians have used their religion to control and exert power over others.
And another reaction to it: http://mcornwell.typepad.com/mikes_blog/
I did not write my query letter again - have until June 20, when I'm going to share it with the writing group I've joined. But I wrote this...which I'd intended to leave opinion free - ie, my opinion not on it, but being me, I apparently found that impossible.
