Soapbox

I didn’t write this. I’m told it is a song, though I haven’t heard the tune. But in light of all the inflamed rhetoric that is flying around these days, I think putting a personal face on the gay marriage issue is worthwhile. I wish all the “good Americans” who oppose it could read this, and then think again.

Tuesday Morning by Melissa Ethridge

10:03 on a Tuesday morning
In the fall of an American dream
A man is doing what he knows is right
On Flight 93

He loved his mom and he loved his dad
He loved his home and he loved his man
But on that bloody Tuesday morning
He died an American

Now you cannot change this
You can’t erase this
You can’t pretend this is not the truth

Even though he could not marry
Or teach your children in our schools
Because who he wants to love
Is breaking your God’s rules

He stood up on a Tuesday morning
In the terror he was brave
And he made his choice, and without a doubt
A hundred lives he must have saved

And the things you might take for granted
Your inalienable rights
Some might choose to deny him
Even though he gave his life

Can you live with yourself in the land of the free
And make him less of a hero than the other three
Well it might begin to change ya
In a field in Pennsylvania

Stand up America
Hear the bell now as it tolls
Wake up America
It’s Tuesday morning…

Come on, let’s roll.

This week President Bush announced that he is officially seeking a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. He says that he is taking this step because he wants to defend marriage and families.

This statement may go down in history alongside “The check is in the mail”, “Of course I’ll respect you in the morning” and “We know Sadaam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction” as a classic lie of our age.

It is a lie to say outlawing gay marriage will defend families when millions of gay people have families. It is a lie to say a DOMA amendment is protecting marriage without any evidence that gay marriage or unions would cause straight couples harm. It is true, however, that study after study shows that divorce damages families and weakens society. The same is true for out-of-wedlock births. Children in these situations often suffer both emotional and economic hardship, which puts a drain on society.

So where is the call to ban divorce? Anybody? Hello! Gosh, the silence from the DOMA advocates is just deafening.

Most people who support a DOMA amendment don’t do so because they want to strengthen families: they do it because they believe their religion tells them that being gay is a sin. That’s all well and good, and they’re entitled to that opinion. But in this country we don’t pass constitutional amendments based on what someone thinks the Bible says! If we did, we’d need a new amendment for stoning adulterers to death, and another for burning witches.

Lawmakers who support DOMA are in a catch-22. If they admit they support it for religious reasons, they have no legal standing; but if they say it’s for sociological reasons, they’re being hypocrites, because they have no evidence. When President Bush calls for a constitutional amendment to ban divorce and extra-marital sex, then I will believe that, although misguided, he is at least sincere in his desire to protect and strengthen families. Since he does not, perhaps he merely wants to protect and strengthen his re-election campaign.

Amending the Constitution to deny civil liberties instead of protecting them is a drastic and dangerous step. It’s been tried once before, with Prohibition, and look how that worked out! President Bush thinks that, because polls say the majority opposes gay marriage, then the majority will support this amendment. My fervent hope is that he will find that he has mis-calculated, and that people on both sides of the marriage issue will be unwilling to support what amounts to yet another Bush administration attack on states’ rights.

It’s now gone beyond a simple pro or con on gay marriage. A vote for this amendment would be a vote to make discrimination the law of the land, to weaken the doctrine of federalism and do an end-run around the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution.

With his miserable record on civil rights, do we want George Bush and friends taking on the U.S. Constitution? You don’t have to be in favor of gay marriage to be against his attempted hijacking of this respected and influential document.

The president and congress should keep their hands off the Constitution and use their time on something that will help people, like fixing social security or health care. Let the people and the states work out the issue of gay marriage, pro or con, for themselves.

I have received an invitation to attend a showing of “The Passion of the Christ” the Mel Gibson film that is causing such a stir. I have heard that it is going to inflame anti-semetism; I have heard that it is a moving message that will bring the viewer closer to God. I have read many different views and seen selected clips, and currently, I don’t want to see the movie.

Each person has a different relationship with God, and those relationships follow different paths to draw them into their holy place. I understand that. Some people achieve a connection through prayer, some via music. Ascetics used to get closer to God through personal punishment: hair shirts and scourging, etc. For them self-mortification produces a sort of divine ectacy. To each his own.

Though I understand that for some people it makes the passion more real, I personally don’t need to see birds eating eyeballs out of living people or nailed whips tearing apart skin to feel the love of God. But, that’s just me.

I remember how Gibson seemed to revel in showing graphic torture and maiming in his movie “Braveheart”. Yech. There are times when blood and guts may be historically acurate, but doesn’t add anything to a movie. Surely it would have been possible to make a frank and moving presentation of the passion story without having gobbets of flesh flying around on screen!

The pain and torture of the crucifixion are facts that do not need to be examined with a microscope to be understood. It is easy for us to understand how people can be brutal: what is harder to understand is how they can love in spite of it. Surely love is as true as pain.

We know that Christ suffered. In those days, people suffered horribly all the time! Tragically, Christ’s suffering was not that unique. What was unique, what made him The Christ was the love, and redemption through love. It sounds like that has been largely left out of the movie. We have enough blood and brutality in life and in movies every day: what we need more of is love.

Making the movie was, I’m sure, a labor of love for Gibson, and some aspects of it are intriguing to me. Overall, however, it sounds like he simply went too far. One critic has subtitled this movie “The Jesus Chain-saw Massacre”! Whatever the religous message intended, it appears the movie is primarily focused on the brutality of crucifixion. For me, the passion is about love. For God so loved the world, remember? Such simple words, but we forget.

In the end, the only way to know for sure would be go see it. If I’m wrong, it would probably be a very memorable experience. Unfortunately, if I’m right, it would be memorable too- in my nightmares.

I suppose it comes down to the fact that I’m just not the kind of person who is uplifted by another person’s agony; not even Christ’s.

There’s an editorial in the paper today about the teacher in Tennessee who was trying to have a pep rally for the honor roll kids, and found out that she couldn’t. Under Tennessee law, all parents must give their permission before any academic information, good or bad is published. Without signed consent from all the parents, she couldn’t even post the honor roll in the hallway, put a congratulatory mention in school newsletters or even have a spelling bee. Why? because children who weren’t being honored, or who didn’t win would feel left out.

Well… yeah. I don’t think that everything should be a competition, particularly for kids, but in those cases, isn’t it supposed to be an incentive, to make one work harder? Don’t the honor roll and the well-behaved kids get to have the trip to Wyandot Lake so that the kids that have to stay behind at school will think, “Man, I wish I was going too!” and try harder?

What amazing silliness! Whose head is so far up their backside that they thought up this idea? There’s a difference between posting the honor roll and posting the F’s, or making kids wear a dunce cap. Only a person just crippled by political correctness couldn’t recognize that difference. The sense of entitlement some people feel, (“I deserve not to be not-honored!”) is just amazing.

I think the academic pep rally was a good idea. The teacher’s thinking was that the goal of school is sort of supposed to be academics, isn’t it? So it makes sense to honor the outstanding students as much as we honor the outstanding athletes. (Someone tell that to OSU)

If they can’t have the academic pep rally, the schools had better not have any sports pep rallies either! Because then wouldn’t the fat kids and the ones cut from the team will feel left out of the recognition? I mean, under this rule, you couldn’t have national honor society, or Quiz Bowl team, could you? And no pictures in the yearbook of any team or club that a kid could be rejected from. My kids’ school couldn’t have had the Writer of the Month and Student of the Month awards, which meant so much to the kids at their elementary school.

I am all for reducing the competition among kids. I like the idea of having an emphasis on achieving a personal best. But in all those soccer matches where there’s no score kept “cause its just for fun” you could ask any kid there and they could tell you who has the most points! Kids know that life has competitions. Judgements are made, grades are given. Sometimes it seems unfair, but that’s how life works. Trying to somehow shield them from this is wrong-headed, and probably unnecessary.

My kid’s basketball team has lost every game this year, and some by spectatular scores. They know that, and they’d dearly love to win a game. But they play anyway, to have a personal best, and because they love the game. I think that is the best life-lesson any parent can hope for for their child- even better than a winning season.