Gay Marriage Decision

As a former teacher (and now openly-liberal gentleman), I would like to comment on the U. S. Supreme Court decision today.

First, the Declaration of Independence is clear: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It has taken much time to bring principle and practice into line—to end slavery in 1865, to determine that “men” includes both sexes and grant females the vote in 1920, and now to allow gays and lesbians to marry.

I think it was Justice Hugo Black who once explained his position in regard to the Bill of Rights this way: “Your rights end where the other person’s nose begins.” So: if gays and lesbians marry, my marriage is not harmed.

My nose is in no way bloodied.

As for Justice Thomas, one of the four members of the Supreme Court in the minority, I wonder that he did not recall a time in 1967, when his very own marriage (to a white woman) would have been illegal and criminal in many states.

(Anti-miscegenation laws were overturned that year, in Loving v. Virginia.)

Who, with even a rudimentary understanding of the U. S. Constitution, would uphold such laws today?

Nor is the decision today to be construed as an attack on freedom of religion, I don’t think. All good people of faith may still attend the churches of their choice. They may take communion as they wish. They may study the Bible, Koran or Torah as they please.

So should it be.

If some preacher wants to warn his congregation that the Sodomites are now irrevocably bound for Hell, that’s freedom of religion, too. If some ministers, priests or rabbis don’t want to marry gay couples, that is still a protected decision—and if it were ever to be taken as far as the U. S. Supreme Court, I would bet that the right to refuse would be protected by a 9-0 vote.

There are, however, limits to all rights, including freedom of religion. An old-fashioned Christian, Muslim or Jew, for example, could not say, “We claim the right the right to stone adulterers who belong to our church, temple or mosque.”

Freedom of religion and personal liberty do not always perfectly correspond.

That’s my thinking, anyway. And to all, I say, have a nice day.

The Sum of All Right-Wing Fears

IN THE WAKE OF THE BLOODBATH at Newtown, Connecticut and the strange year that was 2012, it seems we might need to try to interpret a little conservative thinking.

I’ve been studying the matter and believe I’ve got it down. I think—if I understand it right—that Mr. Obama has been having illicit sex with circus clowns.

I think that’s about the level of most of what has been passing for conservative logic in recent months.

What else have conservatives been trying to tell us? Where are they going at the start of this new year? For starters: Obama is a tyrant. Since he took office the Bill of Rights has been turned into fast food wrapping paper. (Angry white guys can hardly watch Fox News excoriate the President on a daily basis any more.)

So conservatives must rise up and…take back America...and buy guns and vote. Because nothing says tyranny like allowing political opponents to cast ballots and stock up on ammo. It didn’t really matter though, because everyone on their side knew they were going to kick butt in the 2012 election. That’s what Fox News said; and the polls were all wrong, because only gay people care about percentages. What? Obama won???

Obama is like Hitler!

Under Obamacare insurance companies can no longer refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. This includes toddlers with rare genetic disorders and type-1 diabetic teens. What’s the next step, you ask?

Gas chambers for granny.

If taxes go up on the superrich, like the Koch brothers, then we are one step from a communist takeover. This is why the Koch brothers, worth $31 billion apiece, donate tens of millions of dollars to right wing causes, including smashing labor unions. Nothing says “communism” like teachers and fire fighters and bakers of Twinkies trying to win improved wages and benefits. These people want to remain in the great American middle class?

Yep: to the right, that’s “communism.”

Speaking of unions, how greedy can those thugs be? All they want to do is kill good jobs in this country. This is why job creators—here we are thinking, people just like Mitt Romney—have no choice but to create jobs in Bangladesh, where the minimum wage is $37 per month.

Gun sales in this country reached record highs in 2012, with 16.8 million background checks carried out by the F.B.I. You can’t fool conservatives—even if that does mean 45,902 guns were sold daily (it was a Leap Year). Obama plans to take away all their guns.

Glenn Beck says there may be giant magnets.

If anyone (even NASA scientists) mentions global warming or climate change or even says, “Boy, it’s a hot one today,” clearly they are part of a plot to destroy capitalism. They want to create a world government where BP and Shell Oil are denied their inalienable rights—since corporations are now people—to drill in Arctic waters and Americans are forced to eat vegan.

If gay people marry, traditional marriage will be dead, because gay people want to marry in a traditional way. Wedding cakes will no longer be baked.

Tuxedo sales will plummet.

The Chicken Dance will be only a memory.

Anyone who says, “Happy holidays,” in the weeks leading up to Christmas secretly hopes Christians spontaneously combust. (Yeah: some psychologist on Fox News explained it! Obama hates Christmas because when he was a boy his father never gave him a pony.)

We don’t need gun control to keep kids in school safe. We need to put God back in the schools. That means everyone reads the King James Bible—even Buddhists and Mormons and Jews. We need to arm teachers or maybe issue Kevlar-covered Bibles because nothing says “happy children” quite like defensive weaponry stacked near the reading center in a second grade classroom.

SPEAKING OF GOD, IF YOU GET RAPED and end up pregnant that’s His way of showing He loves you. If a mugger crushes your skull and you wind up with no health insurance and stuck in an emergency room it’s His way of saying Obamacare is socialized medicine.

And don’t say He didn’t warn you.

God believes all fifty states need concealed carry laws and He doesn’t like the 47% either.

The Founding Fathers knew everything and you couldn’t possibly beat any of them if you played them in Jeopardy. If the Founding Fathers were for freedom of religion then freedom of religion is still good enough for Christians today. Liberals, those people who hate America, insist that American citizens who happen to be Muslim should be able to build mosques where they want, such as in towns where they live. The Founding Fathers weren’t a pack of Muslims. They weren’t gay, either.

Okay, they weren’t black or female or poor white males either; but that’s not the point.

The Founding Fathers wanted pregnant women who were considering abortions to undergo invasive vaginal probes. It’s all laid out in Article III, Section 3 of the U. S. Constitution.

And you know why Obama is a tyrant? He’s planning to ignore the 22nd Amendment, which limits the chief executive to two terms—because the Founding Fathers never thought to limit a president’s tenure. You can’t fool right-wing thinkers! They know evolution and Hawaiian birth certificates can be faked. They know Obama plans to seize power and run for a third term in 2016, a fourth in 2020, a fifth in 2024, a sixth, a seventh, and an eighth!

My God, how long can that man last?

In summation, have we mentioned that Obama sends Kwanza cards to terrorists? And what about those circus clowns? Sean Hannity says Obama is a lepidopterist. 

And if you hear it on Fox News it has to be true.

 

You can't fool conservatives, they know he's plotting for 2016 and beyond.
Well beyond! Time to stock up on more guns.

Forget the Terrible Towels: NFL Players Voice Support for Gay Marriage

IF YOU MISSED IT THERE'S SUDDENLY renewed hope for those who favor legalization of gay marriage. No, no. Mitt Romney is still against it. And Paul Ryan is still opposed. He's all about Catholic teachings and he's sure that unmarried priests are a great idea. After all, what could possibly go wrong with that?

Well, now, who cares what Mitt and Paul think?

So what if Pat Robertson says we're going to bring down the wrath of God around our ears if we accept gay people as equal? You know:  humans?

Don't worry right-wingers!
If gay marriage is legalized
you won't stop ogling cheerleaders.

Suddenly, players in the NFL are coming "out" in favor of gay marriage. This game day morning, Cheeseheads in Wisconsin awoke, rubbed their eyes in disbelief, and found themselves asking, "Does it really matter if same-sex couples marry?" Who Dat Nation stopped worrying about player suspensions and Steelers fans quit waving their yellow towels and had to carefully consider the issues.

If you missed the story, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has been supporting gay marriage for some time. This support finally caught the eye of Emmett C. Burns Jr., a Maryland lawmaker; and a riled up Burns fired off an angry letter to Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti. Basically, he asked the owner to see that his linebacker shut up.

Burns' letter angered Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, in turn, and the kicker responded brilliantly, in a scathing missive. First, Kluwe wondered if Burns had ever read the U. S. Constitution, with its First Amendment protection of free speech.

Second, he reminded Burns (an African American and sadly a Democrat, too) that brave stands taken by sports figures can matter.

Jackie Robinson was mentioned.

Finally, he assured Burns (and here we might offer the same assurances to the men at the top of the GOP ticket) that even if gay marriage were to become a reality, he (they) would still be perfectly safe:

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children. You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?
 

The standard response from the right is entirely predictable. Marriage is a holy institution. You can't mess with God's plan. It has ever been so:  marriage is between one man and one woman. You can almost hear Burns and his type saying, "And...perhaps most importantly, gay marriage gives me the creeps."

So, let's add a little to what Mr. Kluwe has already said so eloquently. First, Mr. Burns should be ashamed of himself not only for failing to read the U. S. Constitution but also for failing to grasp the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. He might also kick himself for forgetting about the United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Loving et Ux. v. Virginia. You don't have to go too far back in history to discover that, well, marriage hasn't always been just a matter of one man and one woman. Hardly. In 1924 Virginia lawmakers passed what became known as the Racial Integrity Act, limiting marriage to one white man and one white woman, or one black man and one black woman, and that rule remained in effect until a unanimous Supreme Court struck it down in 1967.

TODAY, THE RIGHT-WING HATERS will tell you that it must remain the same way. They will insist they have thousands of years of tradition on their side, not to mention the Bible and Founding Fathers. Yet, we know societies evolve. (Sorry, right-wingers:  we know how much you hate that word.) For centuries, of course, arranged marriages were the rule. In the time of Shakespeare, for example, Frances Coke was offered in marriage, along with £ 10,000, to a wealthy nobleman. When the fourteen-year-old girl tried to resist she was "tied to the Bedposts and whipped" (more than once), according to eyewitnesses.

As late as 1753, the age of consent in England was twelve for a girl. And in the Thirteen Colonies, in the days when the Founding Fathers were born, marriage customs and attitudes still had a long way to go before you could say they matched today's mores and values. Call it the "good old days," if you're Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan--but Puritan lawmakers in New England required all those found to have engaged in premarital sex to marry. Sex, itself, was forbidden on Sunday; and homosexuals caught in the act at any time could be punished by hanging. The law was also clear when it came to adultery and male masturbation--in places like New Haven, Connecticut, capital offenses. But we grew. Don't you see?

In the end, Burns and Romney and Ryan might be wise to read the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.
 

Back in 1776, a new nation had a long way to go before anyone could argue that we had lived up to Thomas Jefferson's ringing ideals. Still, the cause of liberty grew. Slavery was ended. Women won the right to vote. In 1924, Native Americans officially became U. S. citizens. Meanwhile, states raised the minimum age at which a girl could marry, with parental consent, to sixteen, or eighteen without a mother or father's approval. And, yes, The Racial Integrity Act was finally declared unconstitutional.

Gay marriage is coming, sooner or later. Romney and Ryan and Burns can only temporarily stand in the way. They can stare at the Declaration of Independence as long as they want and hope to see some kind of optical illusion. But stare as long as they will:  the words "homosexuals not included" are not ever going to pop out of the background.

History shows that when gay marriage does become law our great Republic will survive. History acknowledges human progress.

Barney Frank and Jim Ready Marry; Cuddly Puppies Still Safe

SOMEHOW, MY WIFE AND I WOKE UP THIS MORNING, and we're still married. It was a stunning development and both of us were surprised.

In case you missed it, former Congressman Barney Frank, an avowed liberal crusader during his time in office, representing a district in Massachusetts, married Jim Ready, his long-time love, yesterday. This riled up ultra-conservative experts on marital matters. After all, as they like to point out, gay marriage is a threat to:

A) Every straight person's marriage;
B) America;
C) Christianity;
D) All morality;
E) Everything else good and true:  including love for mothers, respect for the flag, and cuddly puppies.

A notice about the nuptials, in the New York Times, included these details:

Mr. Frank, 72, and Mr. Ready, 42, were married in Newton, Mass., part of Mr. Frank’s district, on Saturday in a low-key ceremony on the banks of the Charles River. Gov. Deval L. Patrick of Massachusetts officiated. The guests included Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, as well as Senator John Kerry and Representatives Dennis J. Kucinich and Steny H. Hoyer. 

Mr. Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, became, in 1987, the first sitting member of Congress to volunteer that he was gay. He is now the first to be married to a partner of the same sex. Both bridegrooms said they recognized the historical significance of the ceremony, which lasted less than five minutes. Gov. Patrick told the guests that Mr. Frank had requested that the service “be short and to the point.”

THAT'S RIGHT. IT TOOK FIVE MINUTES to doom civilization as we know it and insure that the wrath of God would soon rain down upon our collective national head.

When Americans Against the Tea Party posted a link on their Facebook page, messages were mostly congratulatory (it's a liberal site) but also elicited a few examples of solid, patriotic conservative thought:

Pam J-------S--- commented:  "this is a sin.god says so he needs to step down." (You can read that to mean "God" should step down, of course, but let's assume she meant Mr. Frank, who left Congress some time ago.)

Jeremy V-- E-- had this to say (although it was a little hard to follow his logic):

Another raw fact: Religion is a personal freedom, of which marriage was born into. The tax breaks that come from it are religious freedom acknowledgments. So to demand "equal and fair rights" would be to create your own religion for same sex marriage* But nothing of that sort has been created for same sex...

Meanwhile, Moses M---- captured the essence of anti-gay philosophy when he responded, "PUKE how freakin nasty !!!."

It seemed possible that the voice of conservatism might sound more impressive if I tried a different site. So I switched to the feed from Yahoo on the story and the first comment was from some modest fellow who posted as "Mr Good-Lookinz:"  "I wonder what the thoughts would be of a person living in America in 1776 if he/she was asked if there would ever be a possibility of electing an open queer who talks like ELMER-FUDD to serve in Congress."

"Jeff" seemed to get all kinds of social issues muddled in his head when he added, "Wat will obama do now with the loss of his onetime boy toy!"

"Son of Quisp" added to the mix with this cogent observation: "picturing those 2 on their wedding night will turn all gays straight - this is NOT good news for the 'gay agenda' business......" "Ludwig" grumbled, ALL IN CAPS, and in true right-wing fashion: "FREAKS ARE RUNNING THE COUNTRY!!!!"

"Hammertoe" added a grim, society-is-in-danger" warning: "Parents are rolling over in their graves right now."

And Tombett wrapped up the conservative position with this ringing call for action at the polls:  "Obama & queers....whats next..oh Nov."

SO, WHAT DO WE KNOW IN THE END? My wife and I married in 1986 and we're still married and still love our kids. President and Michelle Obama are still happily married and Sasha and Malia, their daughters, still strike all fair-minded observers as credits to their mom and dad. Nothing at all has changed for our families.

Even America's cuddly puppy are safe.

Finally, in response to Mr Good Lookinz, and all those like him who seem to steep what passes for political thinking in a brew of hate, we might note that in 1776, the Declaration of Independence included these memorable phrases: "that all men are created equal," "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," and "that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

We know, if we love this country--and we might point this out to Jeff and Hammertoe and Tombett, too--that America had a long way to go in 1776, before we could say we had lived up to those ringing ideals. We know that the property qualification was dropped and poor white men started voting only in the early 1800s. We know that advertisements for jobs in the 1850s, when the Irish were first started coming to this country, included the line:  "No Catholics Need Apply." We know African-Americans were freed only in 1865; and that it was another century, with passage of the Voting Rights Act, before a real path to the ballot box was open in places like Alabama and Mississippi. We know women gained suffrage in 1920, that interracial marriage became legal in all fifty states in 1967.

We know the State of Massachusetts ruled in favor of gay marriage eight years ago.

America didn't disintegrate then. It won't disintegrate now. What the haters miss is this:  "America" is an ideal. It is a place where, in theory, freedom is protected, where liberty grows, despite all droughts and bad weather.

SO, I'M STILL MARRIED TODAY. Maybe there's even a Mrs. Good Lookinz, who is still happy today.

In the end, however, those who specialize in hatred have never been in tune with the arc of our nation's history. They've stood in the path of freedom for a time. But in the end, the ideal has always proved stronger than they seemed to realize.

If we look at it from that perspective today is a good day, for marriage, for human dignity and for the freedom we cherish.

North Carolina Minister Calls for Concentration Camps for "Queers"

I'm never sure why some posts catch on while others languish. Recently, I tokk Mitt Romney to task over his stance on gay marriage. One Romney supporter reacted angrily, called me a "liar," and said I was thinking with my "groin."

I can't say I ever realized my groin had powers of cogitation. So I tend to do my thinking with my brain. I'm in favor gay marriage, not because my groin is doing any thinking, but because no matter how hard I try, I can't see why we deny equal rights to American citizens because they're gay; and I can't see how their marriage would be a threat to mine marriage or my children's or anyone else's.


Then a friend shared a link on YouTube and I had a chance to hear Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina. Worley says God is agin' gay marriage. He says the Bible is agin' gay marriage. And he says he's agin' it, too. I don't quite understand how Worley rates with God and the Bible, but let that pass. Reverend Worley has the solution for the "problem" of gays who want to marry. He says, "No."  He's agin' it. And while he's at it he has another idea rattling around in his head and he just has to spill it. He says we should lock them all up in concentration camps.

I think he thinks Jesus would approve.

Here's how this man of God puts it in his sermon:

"Build a great big large fence... put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out..."


"...And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out... Do you know why? They can't reproduce."

I listen to the tape; and I'm surprised, if Worley wants to follow the path the Nazis took in 1933, that he ignores some of their most effective measures. He fails to suggest that we make lesbians and queers wear pink triangles on their uniforms.

He fails to mention tattooing them on the arms.

So, is Worley right? He claims the Bible is his bedrock. And the Bible is clear about this issue. I'm sure Worley would be happy to quote Leviticus: 20:13: "If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them."

The question, really, is why Reverend Worley refuses to pursue his reading of the Bible to a logical end.


He isn't going to be a weasel and back down from the truth is he? Let's have the blood.

As a liberal, I respect people of faith, all faiths. I respect good Christians and I know plenty. But if Worley is going to take a stand on Leviticus he can't be such a wimp. All those people who sat in church and "amened" him (if you watch the video) and didn't have the slightest inclination to stand up and walk out in disgust, I say make Jesus proud! Come right out of the hater's closet and admit your feelings. Let's not stop with stopping gay marriage.


Let's have some killing.

Don't stop there, either, Reverend. Don't stop there, people of Providence Road Baptist Church. Be proud of what you believe. Call for execution of witches and wizards. That's in the Bible, too. Preach a sermon about that, Mr. Worley. Quote from Leviticus:  20:27. Come, come, Mr. Worley and all you fine parishioners. Let's copy Islamic fundamentalists and stone adulterers. Let's have death in Jesus's name. Leviticus: 20:10. Let's end the plague of children who curse parents. Let's kill them, too, as suggested in Leviticus:  20:9.

Don't pick and choose your verses, Mr. Worley. You're an expert on the entire Bible.

You've already suggested a fence 150 miles long. That's more barbed wire than the Nazi's had at Auschwitz, Buchenwald or Treblinka. Take your thinking further. Stop the abomination of gay marriage before our nation lies in moral ruin. The Nazis tried horrific medical experiments, including chemical and medical castrations, to "cure" the gays. Surely, a man like you, a man known for his understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ, could twist some text in the Good Book to justify a little human mutilation! In fact, Reverend Worley, I'm surprised you turned out to be such a coward when it came to your interpretations of the Bible. I'm surprised you stopped with the fencing. I'm surprised you failed to say, "Bring on the gas. Bring on the Zyklon B."

And you call yourself a Christian minister!

What's Mitt Romney's Stand on Witchcraft?

With gay marriage back in the mix as a political issue for 2012, I've been thinking a lot about religion, morality and human rights. I've been thinking a lot about Mitt Romney.

I'm a liberal and I support gay marriage.

That doesn't mean I'm some "godless" communist, as the crazies on the far-right like to put it any time they encounter someone with whom they happen to disagree. I'm just some ordinary guy, doing the best I can to understand the world around me.

So it sparked my interest when the New York Times ran a story about rhesus monkeys and how they're overrunning New Delhi in India, biting pedestrians and stealing groceries out of bags as people stroll along the streets. Monkeys, it turns out, are believed to be the living representatives of the Hindu god Hanuman and tradition holds that Hindus should feed them accordingly, Tuesdays and Saturdays, every week.

There was a similar story about Mr. Romney in the Times not long ago. Not about monkeys. No. Romney is a good Mormon. His church teachings hold that ancient Israelites fled to America many centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived. These ancient Israelistes developed their own civilization, which later fractured in a bloody civil war, involving two groups, the Nephites and Lamanites, the latter triumphing in the end and going on to become the people we call today the "Native Americans."

Conservatives tend to be sure they're right because they have (or think they have) religious truth and the U. S. Constitution on their side. Liberals, of course, tend to skeptical. So I might not buy the Hindu take on monkeys. I might not buy Mormon teachings about Nephites and Lamanites, either. Yet, as a good liberal, I understand that what Mr. Romney chooses to believe in no way harms or influences me.

Now we hear voices raised in certain conservative circles, warning that we must not allow gay marriage. Some Christian extremists (and all religions breed occasional extremists) insist, "God hates fags." If we allow gay marriage, Reverend Pat Robinson likes to warn, God will punish our great nation. It's right there in the Bible, they tell us. See Leviticus: 20:13:  "If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination:  they shall surely be put to death:  their blood shall be upon them."

I'm a liberal, see. And if nothing else, I'm skeptical about putting homosexuals to death.

Now, let me say, that some of the very finest people I have known are Christians, or were, including my mother, a devout Roman Catholic until the moment she passed away. I hope they all get to heaven in their own fashion; and if conduct and compassion are a guide, I believe they will, and so, in whatever manner God intends, I hope they'll all be happy. With a bit of luck, I might even join my Mom and Mr. Romney.

But I do wish, if people were going to base their entire stance against gay marriage on Biblical principles, that they would explain their position on other issues the same way. If Mr. Romney is against gay marriage based on ancient religious teachings, shouldn't he also take a stand against witchcraft, and not just change his position whenever it suits him to gain a little in the wiccan vote? This matter is addressed in Leviticus, too, 20:27:  "A man or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death:  they shall stone them with stones:  their blood shall be upon them."

I'd like to hear him address the plague of children cursing parents in troubled modern times. Mr. Romney doesn't curse much, himself, according to reporters. He has a reputation as a fine father, too, and his children probably don't do much cursing, either. If other boys and girls do, however, what would be Dad Romney's stand when we look at Leviticus 20:9?  "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death:  he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him."

In the end, if you're going to base your case for intolerance toward homosexuals on what men and women were originally taught two or three thousand years ago, then I'd have liked to have seen someone ask during the Republican primaries this spring:  "Mr. Romney, Mr. Gingrich, you both oppose gay marriage. What is your stance on adultery?"

I'd like to have seen Mitt lay it on Newt, and watch Newt squirm, when Mr. Romney quoted Leviticus yet again (20:10):  "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adultress shall surely be put to death."


I don't think it makes me a godless communist to admit I'm puzzled by such matters. I can't see how gay marriage is a threat to me, or to my my wife's happiness or mine, or how it harms my straight neighbors if they mind their own business. If Mr. Romney wants to sit in church and study his particular version of the truth, I don't see where that would be my concern, or anyone else's, be they observant Jew, devout Baptist or practicing Muslim.

If a loving pair of men or loving pair of women want to go to a different church and stand up before God and marry, and maybe later adopt and raise good kids, I don't understand how society has a right to block their way.

I'm just your average liberal.

That means, as far as I have the capacity to understand these questions, that I'm for religious freedom and personal liberty, too, as far as both can be extended in any society, without harm to the common good.

If you want to feed the monkeys, that's your business, too.




P. S. Based on one angry conservative reaction (so far), let me note again the sentence above that says I am for "religious freedom and personal liberty" both. You do me no harm, no matter what you believe, Buddhist, Tao, Fulan Gong, Presybterian, Methodist, Sunni, Shiite, etc.

I'm just a guy who can't figure out how gay marriage hurts ME.

I think the angry conservative needs to stop seeing mirages; or maybe take reading lessons. If my writing is unclear, I apologize for that.