Hucka B.S.

"If the courts rule that people have a civil right to have a homosexual marriage, then a homosexual couple coming to a pastor who believes in biblical marriage who says 'I can’t perform that wedding' will now be breaking the law.”  - Mike Huckabee

Anybody out there actually believe this bullshit?  Stop and think a second.  As far as I am aware, no pastor anywhere is obliged to marry anyone he or she thinks is unfit for marriage.  No pastor is breaking the law now, and no pastor will ever be breaking the law for refusing to marry anyone.

Religious Freedom Restoration Acts

Jeffrey Taylor, in Salon, has written the most delicious attack on religion and the danger of letting it ooze into our legal code.  His article is better than anything I ever write, and I think you'll find it enjoyable if you're of an unbelieving cast of mind.

As I was reading the article, a couple of things occurred to me:  Anyone who would unquestioningly use the advice of a thousands-of-years-old "magic book" (Taylor's characterization of sacred writings) to tell him how to live his life has a crippling phobia of figuring things out for himself.  And:  The authority vested in the magic books is the number one justification to very bad people to do very bad things.

[God]'s pronouncements are regarded as binding on all humans.  Hence, if the fictitious tyrant says, for instance, that gay sex is an abomination, it just is, and gays have to be abominated, like it or not.  Nothing personal--it's just what the magic book says.

In any case, I would like to offer an alternative to the Ten Commandments, as well as the myriad other rules and proscriptions one finds in religious books.  We're always talking about good and evil.  Just what do we consider to be evil?  It seems to me that evil boils down to intentionally causing suffering in other people or animals.

So, instead of the Ten Commandments, may I offer the Two Suggestions?  Or, perhaps, One Suggestion, parts A and B.

A.  Try to get a good idea of what causes others to suffer, and try to avoid doing any of those things.

B.  When you see others suffering, do what you can to alleviate their suffering.

I didn't receive these suggestions from God and bring them down to you from a mountaintop.  I just took a look around and worked it out for myself.  You can do it, too.  Anyone can, who is not blinded by received "wisdom" or by a desire to persecute others.

Stop and think. Try to remember when you "chose" heterosexuality.

“That lifestyle is something they choose. I choose to be heterosexual. They choose to be homosexual. Why should I be beat over the head to go along with something they choose?” says Kevin O'Connor."

Think back now, Mr. O'Connor, to the time you made the choice to be heterosexual.  You don't remember?  I think that that's because you never had to make a choice.  For as long as you can remember, you've been attracted to girls and not boys.  Your current day-to-day "choice" to act as a heterosexual is a perfectly easy one--you don't even have to think about it, because heterosexual is what you are.  You've never had to make a choice.  You've never had a choice.

It's the same with gays, pal.  They have as much choice in the matter as you or I do, which is none.  It's not a matter of sinning, it's a matter of being who they are, and not waging a hopeless war against how they were made.