Gay Marriage

I see the Minnesota Legislature is considering putting a ballot measure out for voters to ban Gay Marriage.


I was for much of my life a homophobe.  I didn't realize of course.  It just felt perfectly normal to think gays were lesser beings - that was what I learned growing up, thats what all my friends thought, and I had no reason to rethink it.  It felt right and had no impact on my life so I accepted my feelings as true.


Eventually events in my life forced me to explore my beliefs, to analyze, to understand, so they made sense with other things I had examined and knew were inherently right.  It took a couple years to deconstruct my gut level prejudices.  Some remnants are probably still there, and will always be there, buried in some circuitry in my brain now solidified and unchangeable through the passage of years.   But I developed new circuitry to adjust my responses to fit with the other beliefs I have come to as I grow older and wiser.


Now a prejudice I struggle against is a prejudice against people who support the ban on gay marriage.  I've been there, I have felt that gays are less deserving, that it was right to treat them differently than the rest of us, and felt justified, even wise in that belief.  Now, since I have been through the process of examining the lack of foundation for those beliefs, I am impatient with those who aren't actively examining their beliefs.  


I am particularly impatient with the people who wrap themselves in Jesus to justify their bigotry.  I know what Jesus said, and their behavior is totally antithetical to what Jesus taught.    They build their beliefs around the harsh, judgmental law of Leviticus, and are oblivious to the fact Jesus rejected that view of God in his teachings.  They cherry pick snippets of biblical verse out of context wherever they can to support their desire to judge and punish gays, oblivious to Jesus express teachings not to judge.  Not to punish.  To love.


If any Christians are reading this blog and feeling unjustly treated, I ask you to contact me and tell me where you think Jesus deputized you to judge gays and then act to treat gays as second class citizens.  I am pretty confident you will not be able to find any words out of Jesus's mouth remotely supportive of that view of God's instructions to us.  What you will find is:


John 8:2-7 where the scribes of the temple were trying to corner Jesus into saying Leviticus was wrong, so they could charge him with heresy and lock him up.  Jesus outsmarted them by pointing out why Leviticus was wrong, without actually saying Leviticus was wrong.  We are all sinners, it is God's job to judge and punish sinners, not ours.


Luke 6:27-28 Jesus says love your enemies, do good for those who hate you, pray for those who curse you, implore God's blessing on those who hurt you.


Mathew 7:1 - Jesus says Judge not lest ye be judged.  


Mathew 7:12 - Jesus says the Golden Rule is the law of Moses.  Do unto others as you  would have them do to you.  If Gays were a majority in this country would you like them to ban you from being able to marry to protect and share the benefits of marriage with your partner? 


The Christian opposition to gay marriage tramples on Jesus's teachings in their haste to protect their gut level prejudices and fears.   

Budget ironies

Budget deficits and battles over taxes and cuts to government are the norm these days.  It just seems to me that Republican policies are perfect example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. 


Here in California the Democratic coastal areas of the State pay more taxes to the State than they receive back in benefits from the State. The inland counties that form the backbone of the Republican party receive more back from the State than they pay in taxes.   So Republican areas of the State pay less taxes and get more benefits from State spending than the areas that are Democratic.


Yet for twenty years California Republicans have had no agenda other than cutting taxes and cutting Government.  We are now at the point their obstinacy is probably going to result in major Government cuts. 


If it wasn't for the human cost, I would enjoy the delicious irony as the Central Valley experiences the impact of the loss of that major ongoing injection of State money into their already flimsy local economies. 


On the National scene the same situation is true.  More tax revenues come from the Democratic leaning states, more tax money goes out to Republican leaning states.   Republicans in Congress will not accept any increase in taxes.


Of course we all will be impacted eventually.   Big corporations and Wall Street will do OK no matter what happens.  They are busy selling stuff to the rest of the world, they don't need us anymore.  But it will hit a lot of main streets hard.   We pulled out of the last economic free-fall through massive government spending.  Government threw money at big corporations to keep them from failing and sending us into a depression.  Distasteful but reasonably effective.  Now we are going to effectively remove Government from the picture with nothing in sight to replace governments economic contribution.  We could be headed for a long and painful decade or so.