Some thoughts on Marriage Equality, and the conservative christian resistance to it

I think some of this friction between the “Religious Freedom” people and the Marriage Equality people is a lack of understanding about public and private space. Public spaces are governed by laws that apply to the general public, and public spaces. For instance, a black person can come to your door, onto your private property, and you don’t like black people? Well, you can call that person a n****r, and tell them to get off your property. Totally legal. 

If a gay couple comes to your open-to-the-public bakery, and wants to buy some scones for their wedding, you have to sell it to them.

 I am going to say it again.

 You have to take their money.

 If you believe that you should not have to take their money, that being forced to take their money is impinging upon your religious beliefs, what you are essentially saying is, “I have the right to treat you differently, because of “freedom of religion”, ergo no Blacks/Jews/Mexicans/whoever are welcome here. If you force me to rent/bake a cake/perform the service that my licensed, tax paying business exists to do for any of these groups, I am experiencing religious persecution.” If they want to order a wedding cake, you have to make them one.

 I think there might be some leeway on how you decorate it, but you gotta make em’ a cake. The whole idea behind protecting the public space, and not allowing people to be discriminated against in the public space is to protect EVERYONE, NOT JUST GAYS/BLACKS/WOMEN/CHILDREN/and unfortunately, you too.

 I think a more nuanced approach might work – a sign above your door that says something like, “Be advised: We don’t like Gays/Blacks/Jews/Muslims here, but we will serve you because it’s the law, but we don’t have to be nice to you, and we will spit in your food/make you a krappy Kake/give you subpar service.”

 Frankly, I’d love to discriminate against certain flavors of Christianity, like the Westboro Baptists. I’d love to persecute them, to run them out of the country. Yet, they have a right to exist, and to picket in the public space. They can be opposed in the public space too, and thanks to all the good people who have opposed them over the years, from ordinary citizens to the Patriot Guard Riders, bikers who form a wall against them so they cannot disrupt military funerals. But still, tax exempt, a church, and the right to try to spread hate. 

So, back to my point: If you operate a private, members-only bakery, where people have to pay a membership fee, you can exclude anybody you want to, this is how schools segregated by gender get away with barring membership for girls (or boys). If you want to discriminate, you need to do it in a “private club” type setting. I imagine the entry requirements of the KKK (ostensibly a private club) would probably exclude several protected groups, but it’s existence is totally legal. Hell, it’s legal to burn a cross on your own property 24/7/365.

 Saying that a person’s religious freedom is being infringed upon by forcing a public business to treat a gay couple the same as a straight couple is telling: it speaks to the deeper truth: the resistance to marriage equality is, for many conservatives, rooted in the belief that homosexuals should not exist. I am serious about this. The loathing, the hatred, the belief that homosexuals are hellbound pedo leaning deviants who should be murdered, these are some of the roots of this resistance.

I would ask all of my conservative friends to look deeply into their hearts, and to at least be honest with yourself about how you feel. If you hate gays, admit it at least to yourself.

To those who say, “Love the sinner, hate the sin”, I say, “Let the sinless one cast the first stone.” Those words were supposedly uttered by Jesus of Nazereth, defending a prostitute who was about to be beaten to death with stones for being a prostitute. This is YOUR MYTHOLOGY.

So, Christians who oppose marriage equality, I have a message for you. Your culture is now in the process of being marginalized (in case you don’t know what that means, it means “to be relegated to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group”). This has been happening for decades now. Youth are leaving the conservative churches in droves, and the only growth in Christendom is in those strip mall style churches with the jeans and the pho-rock music (most of these Churches welcome LGBT individuals with open arms, wisely accepting their help, and tithes and offerings, the lifeblood of all religious institutions). You are in the minority now, but not persecuted. Instead of playing the victim, retreat into your cloisters, your churches. Have your own reality in your private spaces. In your churches and schools, you can try to create your own “gay-free” environments, on your private properties. Your tax-exempt status is safe, if Scientology does not have to pay taxes, y’all are gonna be just fine.

 The fear mongering. The comparisons to the Roman Empire, comparisons to the Greeks, Sodom and Gomorrah. I’ve heard it all, and when I sat next to the bed of my cousin, Ann Kennedy, on her final day of life, I reflected upon our shared humanity, and the irrelevance of her sexual orientation. I also reflected upon a reality where she would be denied entry to heaven because she was Lesbian, and decided if there was such a place, and Ann was not welcome, I would never want to be there either.

The capriciousness, the arbitrary nature of such beliefs, the rejection of science…I can only shake my head. If we are created in the image of God, we are all a piece of God. God must represent all human diversity, gender, orientation. Not this white bearded male on a throne in the sky, really people? Really? All the diversity on planet earth, and that’s what you believe?

“I’m against violence, but gays bring it upon themselves.” That is a direct quote from someone I know quite well, and I asked this person if women who dress in short skirts and heels are inviting rape. I am sure you can guess the answer I received.

We have a long way to go, but we’ve made great strides. We put a tiny space ship on a comet. Surely we can disagree, and live our own private lives, but co-exist in the public space.

One more thing. A God who created a worm that can change it’s gender based upon environmental factors, and can fertilize itself if no mate is available, but this God cannot tolerate a hot transgender sex scene? What kind of weird, arbitrary chaotic being is this? What kind of mental judo do you have to engage in to suspend your reason and logic to believe this?

 Conservative Christians who harbor Intolerance not dissimilar to ISIS, when you enter the public space, your behavior will be treated in the same manner as everyone else. We are Americans, the United States of America. You can masturbate in your private space, you cannot masturbate on the side walk in broad daylight. The public space has rules. You cannot scream racial epithets on the sidewalk either, but you can certainly do it in your own home, or at the Klan meeting. The public space belongs to everyone, even those with whom you disagree, hate, or wish were dead. Hey, we all have those feelings.

Thanks for reading my rant.

RIP Vi Landy, still miss you.

Exactly 7 years ago, on February 18, 2007, Vi Landry was living her last full day alive. I don’t know what she was doing, but I know that she had a new dog, Zeus, an adolescent Doberman.

I was married at the time, and my then wife was good friends with her. Vi had just lost her father to cancer, with whom she was very close. She was uncommunicative, didn't reply to emails, she was struggling with her grief. Cedar asked me what she should do (an exceedingly rare occurrence), and I said, “Go down there! Hang out with her, be with her, get her into the city (New Orleans), have some girl bonding time.”

Vi was looking for a car, and she’d found a VW Rabbit-truck, one of those Rabbits with a truck bed. Again, I was asked what my opinion was, did I think those were good vehicles? I said, “Oh, yeah, those little trucks are super cool, she should totally get it, $1,100 (or whateverthefuck the price was) is a great deal!”

Vi was supposed to pick her up at the airport, and she never showed.

She was driving to the airport, in this little rabbit truck, with Zeus in the passenger seat, after having just bought it. I don’t know exactly what happened, but she had a head-on collision, and her and Zeus died instantly. I struggle with wondering if she'd still be alive if I'd kept my mouth shut, and said "I don't know" when asked for advice.

I know it's not my fault, but I keep hearing myself passionately pitching the trip, feeling concerned for Vi in her grief, wanting her to be connected again, to be reachable. Vi was an extraordinary person, and she is sorely missed, even now. She said to me once, “You are one of the good guys.don’t forget that.” I am trying, Vi. I am trying.

I borrowed the picture from Jamie Houston's Picasa gallery. It was taken less than a month before she left. The pain of this loss is devastating, still.

Do it Yourself!

I am convinced that to truly understand how to do something, you must DIY.

You must get your hands into it, get em’ dirty. It helps to read instructions, watch youtube videos, and get hands-on instruction, however, there is no substitute for real world experiential learning. Experience is the best teacher, and sticks in the mind.

Experience is the path to being an expert, and being an expert allows you to speak with authority, and get it done right. Having said all that, I have a saying to share: “What would the Old Man do?”

The  Old Man is not just my father, the Old Man is every older male that I ever worked for or learned anything physical or practical.

The Old Man is grandpa and his friends, that old handyman that lives next door, your boss who tells you “You’re doing that wrong, do it this way".

The Old Man is the embodiment of the school of hard knocks, years of experience in the field, and cultivated good sense.

The Old Man may be a farmer, or a mechanic, or your dad, or uncle, or an old how-to book.

When I am confronted with a project or issue that is in Old Man territory, and I don’t immediately know what to do, I ask that question, “What would the Old Man do?”

Inevitably, the answer becomes clear, I can almost hear his gruff commanding voice. He’s not politically correct, he’s not necessarily nice about it, and he’s always telling you to hurry up and take your time at the same time, but he’s almost always right.

So, DIY, and while you are at it, get help from the Old Man, he knows what to do.

As the years pass, and I become more skilled and experienced, I begin teaching and sharing, and start to become the Old Man (just a little). To me, practical skills like basic carpentry, plumbing, basic tool use, knowledge of fasteners and building materials – this kind of stuff is becoming less and less a part of the male experience. I crave it. I aspire to it. I collect tools and learn how to use them.

Self-sufficiency and independence from a society that packages everything in a plastic/Styrofoam one-use dolphin choking device is what I am talking about. I am talking about personal strength and confidence stemming from the accomplishment of tangible goals.

The Old Woman is the same, just different knowledge to pass down, and much nicer about it. The Old Woman knows some of the same stuff, but additionally a whole lot more that the Old Man does not know.