No On 8 Demonstration-November 8, 2008, Silver Lake, CA
JESUS WAS COOL. IT’S HIS FAN CLUB THAT’S FUCKED UP.
The supporters and opponents of Prop 8 include diverse backgrounds and agendas. Tonight’s demonstration inspired some thoughts regarding the religious based opposition to legalizing same sex marriage.I am not a Religious person. But I am Spiritual. To me, God is the force that drives
Love, Understanding, Compassion and Tolerance as well as creates the Beauty and Tragedy that is our lives here on this ball of dirt and water that sits spinning within a vast cosmic soup.
This simple formula has served me throughout my life and that is as close to practicing Religion as I will ever get. I’ve been informed by some Christians however, in no uncertain terms, that I will never reach true God, Heaven or Salvation because there is only one way there and I didn’t buy a ticket. I nevertheless have no animosity for these people who would damn me to a fiery pit, and I respect their right to worship however they wish because, well, why the Hell shouldn’t I? As for me, I believe that if there is any kind of God, out there, He might say; “Don’t worry man, you’re cool.†So I’ll just go about my business and take my chances.
What I am seeing here today is actions by certain religious people who are not happy enough to be in good with their God on their own terms, but need to do some of God’s judgement and condemnation work for him too (how thoughtful!). I see religious people who are afraid, angry, hateful and vindictive. I see religious people who are threatened by people who are unlike them because a book told them what is right and wrong. I see hypocrisy. I look into history and I see a religious force that has promoted itself through fear and has enforced a blind loyalty by fueling further fear.
I’d sometimes say to myself, “There are so many people in this world who have beliefs that I may find absurd or even dangerous, but perhaps if I stay out of their business, they’ll stay out of mine. They may be delusional or misguided but at face value, they may only be good people who want to be true to a good God.â€
But this week I learned better. I learned that fear and ignorance are two of the most powerful forces in human politics, and that these elements within our world cannot be erased or changed by simple logical or reasonable means because logic and reason have nothing to do with it. I learned that sometimes fear and ignorance are one with the body. Inseparable. Destroy the ideology and you destroy the person. Attempt to tell someone to reconsider what they’ve clung to all their lives and you might as well try to remove that person’s skin. I’ve learned that all of the most wonderful, inspirational and enlightening words, ideals and dogmas that can ever be written in one book are only as good as the flesh and blood earthbound beings who may implement and practice them.
So now, let’s turn a pragmatic eye to more secular solutions.
What’s left for those of us who see a different truth? Faith in democractic process? Faith in prevailing reason? Faith in God? I don’t know. But I can hope.
“Gay is the new black”? That’s just retarded. Maybe the sign holder didn’t mean it the way it comes off, but considering how the media is treating this Obama/prop 8 situation, they should have known better. Next they’ll be dumping on the caged chickens for the gay marriage defeat…oh wait, they already are!
I agree with El Chavo, that is weak. I was there and I saw a lot of signs I liked, and a few I didn’t. The irony of that sign isn’t lost on me but I still think it’s weak, wrong time wrong place.
Thanks for the report Al. The familia and I were headed down there, but the car traffic and parking was stupid, so we went elsewhere.
This definitely was a weird election, where a black man was elected president, food animals were granted some rights, while at the same time, minority group had a civil right taken away. With such progressive movement nationally, its hard to believe this happened.
I love the photo of the Bible sign.
Here is a Toles cartoon I saw in a window tonight:
http://flickr.com/photos/waltarrrrr/3014979370/
Even in a protest such as this, you’ll find multi-levels of intent, attitude and issue focus among the varied participants. You’ll find some people manifesting clear and heart felt sentiments while other messages expressed can appear definitely lame and out of touch with the main message. If my instincts serve me, I also detected traces of “this is the hip thing to do at the moment-so here I am wanting to be seen doing it” types of participation. While navigating the crowd and observing the entire demonstration from a “people-watcher’s” perspective, I saw many sides of all of these elements. These pics and others that may appear can hopefully convey a revealing picture of the reality of what was out there. Then people can judge for themselves. I don’t really care to become a big cynic right here and start analyzing every individual’s intent and motivation while attending these, or any other rallys for that matter. Because then I would be guilty of detracting from the big message here as well. But I will say that overall it was an inspiring experience to see so many people act up for the rights they seek.
That’s funny Walt! I was hanging out with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for a short time and they had a lot of good chicken jokes. Those Sisters are a scream.
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll128/psychoworks13/DSC00892.jpg
Christianity is wrong.
I think it encourages group think. I think the people who it hurts the most are the people who need the most help: the poor, the desperate and the oppressed.
Christianity is an exploitive monster that takes people hopes and manipulates them for the benefit of the people who run the church, whether it be a little storefront church, a mega-church, the LDS or the granddaddy of all Christian faiths, the Catholic Church.
In the US people have used Christianity as a justification to murder people (indigenous Americans), enslave people (African-Americans), and now to deny people marriage rights (gay Americans). And that is not ok.
I think allowing the menace of Christianity to have the influence that it does in the state (country) is something we have to work on ending. There needs to be a strict separation between church and state. This would also include liberal churches. We need to just cut the chord completely. We also need to remove that “under god” silliness in the pledge that was added in the 1950s or 1960s.
I know that is going to be hard in the more economically depressed communities, because often the church is the only thing they have. What we have to do is work on giving those people more options.
We need to clean up the economically depressed ethnic urban enclaves, we need to build infrastructure in the economically depressed white rural communities. We need to provide these communities with jobs, education and real hope that isn’t in some fantasy book. We need to show them that their lives can be good right now on earth.
We need to make sure that everyone has a job, even if we have to make those jobs up. I will gladly have my taxes raised if it would cure this unemployment problem that we are having.
We need to move social programs away from the church and into secular organizations. We need to make poverty in inner cities and rural communities a federal issue on the same level as WAR and BANKING.
We give all of this money to rich people and their friends like Eli Broad and his friends at AIG and we ignore the poor and uneducated and we leave this vacuum of hopelessness that gets filled with prejudice, intolerance, religion, and gangs.
Those of us in the secular community have to let those people know that we care about them. That we care more about their well-being that some stupid person at an alter that demands that they give 10% of their hard earned money, so that they can sell them the lie that this will give them little bit of relief when they die.
Hell is having to hope that things will get better when you die.
We need to stop excusing the church. The civil rights movement was 50 years ago and I’m sorry to say but the poor black people didn’t benefit all that much from it and the players in that game are still in power and not spreading that wealth around very much. Sad to say, as I stated in my prior post black people aren’t magical. As with white people in power and won’t let go of the reins of power and wealth, black people have the exact same thing.
The first person who didn’t get off the bus (or move to the back) wasn’t Rosa Parks. It was another woman. A darker, poorer, single mother, with no connections but she wasn’t the right “type” to kick off the movement to just give a little taste about the traditional civil right’s movement run by the all mighty church. No disrespect, but this needs to be stated. It’s not that I am not grateful, I am BUT the church needs to be critiqued in a MAJOR WAY.
We also need to stop people from this thought that in order to be successful you need to have lots of stuff. I truly believe that Christianity and capitalism are interwined. It’s a good tool to use to get people to think the same, to do what you say and to make them not question authority, because in Christianity questioning authority is a sin.
That works out nicely for cops, the gov’t, and big business. The average god-fearing ethnic and white person thinks you are a bad person if you don’t let cop disrespect you and that’s because of the power of the church and it’s insistence on obedience at all costs.
Church is a microcosm of how America works and we need to break that system.
It’s a new day. We need to end the church influence in the lives of working and poor white, latino and black communities and start working for the equality of all classes.
Because poor whites, blacks, latinos, indigeneous americans and asians have never benefited from anything the opportunities that the church has gotten offered to the more monied members of those groups.
Browne
Browne elucidated far more than I could do with respect to race, so I am going to kvetch about the nightmarish typeface: under-leaded, giant blacklettre typeface with serifs, fer xrissakes! The designer responsible for this typographical travesty should be beaten with the very sticks on which the signs are held aloft.
browne,
…”It’s a new day. We need to end the church influence in the lives of working and poor white, latino and black communities and start working for the equality of all classes.”
“Those of us in the secular community have to let those people know that we care about them. That we care more about their well-being that some stupid person at an alter that demands that they give 10% of their hard earned money, so that they can sell them the lie that this will give them little bit of relief when they die.”
sigh. what a bunch of hippie idealism! what a drag that browne can’t give an ounce of credit where it is perhaps merited…
Martin Luther king jr. could not have had the impact he had without the moral weight of his chrisitan values and the moral context in which he wrapped his arguments in his fight for justice…
hispanics look to the church for stability in their lives because they understand that secular institutions (and that faraway neverland of washington d.c.) have limited use and impact in their everyday lives….
sigh. why don’t we just put all our hopes and dreams in the secular/liberal basket that browne puts hers in. i respect browne’s faith in secularism, i just don’t belong to that church….
i hope the church sticks around for a very loooong time providing strong contrasts and challenges to an otherwise unhinged and radical agenda secularism/liberalism can sometimes impose on the rest of us…
Rosie,
Please remember this quote by anti-statist Emma Goldman:
“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
Just because the church does a bit better than the state against which it fights—and if you are familiar with how the sundry clenches of the church came to be, especially when a particular ruler forced a wedge for no other reason than he wanted a divorce—does not mean folk should accept it. (A brilliant popular adaptation of this crucial event may be found in viewing The Lion in Winter. I strongly suggest you view it and then seek further reading of the event, before you comment further on the graces of the church.) And before you comment that that is ancient history, you might want to look into the church’s ongoing debacle of the selling of Self-help Graphics. So much for church sponsorship of the latino community! Come back to me in a few months, which is about as long as the money gained from that fiasco, will last.
Hamas—which is funded by Iran and has a distinct mission to destroy Israel—provides community services commensurate with the catholic church. (Please note: I do not endorse Hamas, the Pope, the C of E nor any of the religiousity mentioned herein) Should folk sigh and accept that too?
You are quite free to subjugate yourself, and sigh while doing so, but some folk prefer to be forced to their knees rather than willingly bend to them.
Bustard,
“Hamas—which is funded by Iran and has a distinct mission to destroy Israel—provides community services commensurate with the catholic church. (Please note: I do not endorse Hamas, the Pope, the C of E nor any of the religiousity mentioned herein) Should folk sigh and accept that too?”
sigh again. what kind of parallel or correlation are you drawing here between Hamas and the Church?
answer: a hysterical one.
I will indulge your logic a bit: the church cannot asign itself any “graces” or brownie points for the good works it renders to the community because, hey, Hamas does good works too, and in this regard the church is irrelevant, no better or useful than a terrorist organization…
ahem…
Reminder: Hamas encourages or justifies terrorism as a means to an end…
Yup. sounds like something straight out of the gospels and Pope Ratzingers pulpit…
please don’t conflate two different missions here.
the church aims to help those responsive to it’s help in accordance with the teachings of the gospel.
Hamas aims to destroy israel.
it couldn’t be more clearer…
when you, bustard, return to earth, i would be more than happy to continue this dialogue…
forget lion in winter; or the cowardly lion of oz; or the lion king….
keep these words in mind…
Title: The Beatles – Revolution lyrics
Artist: The Beatles Lyrics
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah
ah, ah, ah, ah, ah…
You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
all right, all right, all right
Send “Revolution” Ringtone to Cell
Yes, Rosie, you are so right. The Catholic church has never let aided and abetted the Nazis, nor staged eight massive sets of wars called The Crusades that resulted in terrific devastation, nor all but obliterated much of ancient Egyptian art and culture and especially music.
When you get your head out of silly pop songs—for 11 years I was employed by EMI (the Beatles home) and I can tell you that John Lennon was a millionaire owing to fools thinking it was all about peace.
In the meantime, let me reiterate that Hamas’ mission is no different than what Catholic Church desires, it simply has a different target and tends to be more overtly violent.
Rosie,
You may judge Hamas, but who will ultimately judge Israel?
Let’s not paint them with the innocent victim brush.
Bastard,
really…you need to accept the fact that the catholic church does not pose an immediate threat to you, only perhaps in the realm of your thoughts and nightmares.
sober up. if you’d like to retreat to the past and cite examples of historical atrocities, by all means go ahead, but i’d much rather you remain in the present. it helps the conversation a bit. it helps it move forward. i don’t need a history lesson.
okay, so…
“In the meantime, let me reiterate that Hamas’ mission is no different than what Catholic Church desires, it simply has a different target and tends to be more overtly violent”
hmmmmm…i just don’t know how to respond to this laughable assertion that the catholic church seeks to destroy…i must have missed this info. you should let israel know immediately that there are wars to fight beyond hamas. let’s refocus our efforts on the vatican…
breaking news: the vatican seeks to take over the world…
…the sky is falling, the sky is falling…
“I am going to kvetch about the nightmarish typeface: under-leaded, giant blacklettre typeface with serifs, fer xrissakes! The designer responsible for this typographical travesty should be beaten with the very sticks on which the signs are held aloft.”
At least they didn’t use Comic Sans!
Ban Comic Sans!
Sorry don’t mean to make light of the situation but I cannot pass up font talk.
Rosie,
“really…you need to accept the fact that the catholic church does not pose an immediate threat to you, ” you.
Yes it does. If there are people that owing to the catholic church lets themselves be exploited because of the church whatever church that is, that does impact all of our lives directly.
It allows rich people to pay some people slave wages. Owing to that, prices are artificially low, so then we don’t value those people or their work and then owing to thinking we have more than we really do, we over spend and start using credit and we have what we have now.
Shopping is like heroin, once you start you don’t stop.
The church and its influence directly had a hand in this economic downfall and this environment of legalized slavery in this country.
The church is probably the only thing between people rising up and taking this place down French Revolution style and I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing.
How poor do people have to get before they do something other than pray or talk it out? Screw talking. This gov’t is trying to kill people by starving them to death.
That’s why even the most nonreligious and amoral people who have stuff won’t speak too loudly on this issue. They know the church directly keeps the people with the pitch forks in check.
We’re all connected.
Browne
To add to Browne’s latest response. Let’s Don’t ignore the progress stifling stranglehold the church holds to this day in other parts of the world. Take Latin America, where the peasant class has done without various forms of basic infrastructure, jobs, justice, freedom-you name it for centuries, yet these people continue to give the church their “diesmos” (donations) like clockwork from the little material goods they posses based on their hope for salvation in the afterlife. This has gone on forever and continues to this day. The church is a useful pressure valve tool and monitor of the masses in these countries that works in harmony to help perpetuate the local Goverment’s corrupt existence. I have Salvadoran friends who lived through the revolution of the 80’s and can tell you first hand about the Church turning people in to the State and the fields of “desaparecidos”.
I guess it comes with giving a fuck about other people in other places besides myself that makes it that I like to open my eyes to the big picture of what goes on in the world and feel sympathy for victims of injustice and tyranny elsewhere. If I was living in some village somewhere surrounded by this kind of oppresion, I would like to think that somebody out there at least gave a shit and knew about it. What happens over there ultimately affects all of us. But maybe instead, I’ll just look out my own back window and declare that everything looks just fine today.