Category Archives: religion

Live And Let Live

Posted on by under Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

Hungary’s “president”/dictator, Viktor Orbán has shared his ideology with Republicans in this nation and they have gobbled it up like dogs will gobble up the last of your steak, given half a chance.  Orbán has explicitly rejected the liberal democracy that his country used to enjoy, saying that its emphasis on multiculturalism weakens national cultures while its insistence on human equality undermines traditional society by recognizing that women and LGBTQ people have the same rights as straight white men. The age of liberal democracy is over, he says, and a new age has begun.  And far too many on the far right here admire Orbán, wish to instill the same ‘values’ here in the U.S. that he has forced on the people of Hungary.

In place of “Liberal Democracy”, Orbán advocates what he calls “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy.”  In July 2018, Orbán said …

“Liberal democracy is in favor of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture; this is an illiberal concept. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration; this is again a genuinely illiberal concept. And liberal democracy sides with adaptable family models, while Christian democracy rests on the foundations of the Christian family model; once more, this is an illiberal concept.”

In other words, he calls for a very undemocratic ‘democracy’, one in which you are free only as long as you live by a prescribed set of religious rules that excludes anyone who looks, thinks, or believes differently than dictated by the state.  The United States is NOT Hungary and frankly I find Orbán’s ideas to be highly offensive.  To say that women, people of colour, or LGBTQ people are somehow not as worthy as straight, white Christians is a slap in the face to more than half of the people in this nation.   Our foundation calls for a wall of separation between church and state, and for good reason.  The First Amendment of the United States Constitution calls for ‘freedom of religion.’  It does not say, “freedom of Christianity”, but of ‘religion’ … and that means any, all, or none.  If you are to have freedom of religion, then you must also have freedom from religion.  Hence, that wall of separation.

The United States is a secular nation, not … I repeat, NOT a Christian one.  There are many religions practiced in this nation, and a growing number of people who claim no ties to any religion.  Catholics, Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus and the like all pay taxes, all vote, and all exercise their 1st Amendment rights.  Orbán’s ideas may be workable for Hungarians, though that is up for debate, but they do NOT work for the people of this nation!

Look, folks … it is nobody else’s business what religion, if any, a person chooses to follow or what their beliefs are, but on the same side of that coin, it’s not their place to dictate to others, to tell an entire nation how it must believe, what religious views it must honour.  It’s a really simple premise – I call it ‘Live and Let Live.’

Beware the politician who praises Viktor Orbán and others like him, for they are out to change this nation — not for the better, but in terrible ways.

“Protect the Children” They Say … WHICH Children???

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

When I read Charles Blow’s column last night, my breath caught in my throat and I felt tears welling behind my eyes.  I knew it needed to be shared, to be read and thought about far and wide.  Please take a minute to read it and think about the injustice being done to nearly half the children in this nation.   “Protect the children,” DeSantis and others say … but what they really mean is protect the white children and to hell with all others.

The Other Children in the DeSantis Culture War

Charles M. Blow

08 March 2023

ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s midday on Saturday in Orlando’s Greenwood Cemetery, and just up an incline from an algae-covered pond a group of students encircle a grave. Many are holding a book — some clutching it to their chests the way a preacher holds a Bible.

That book, “A History of Florida Through Black Eyes,” was written by Marvin Dunn, an emeritus professor at Florida International University, who is among those gathered. He quiets the group before telling the gripping story of the man beneath the tombstone. The man was Julius “July” Perry, a Black voting rights activist who was killed — arrested, then dragged from jail by a white mob and lynched — on Election Day in 1920 during the Ocoee Massacre, the culmination of a tragic chain of events set in motion, according to accounts, by a Black man attempting to vote.

The stop at the cemetery was part of the second “Teach the Truth” tour, a field trip to historic Black sites in Florida, organized by Dunn in response to the threat to teaching comprehensive Black history posed by the anti-woke hysteria of the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

“Teach the Truth” is full of visits to the graves of Black people killed by white racists, cases Dunn told me he focuses on “because those are the ones that are easiest to forget” — the “hard stories” that are, as he says, the ones most in need of preservation.

Marcus Green outside his home in Hialeah, Fla.Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times

On this tour there are about two dozen students. One of them is Marcus Green, a 15-year-old Black boy, tall and thin, with searching, almond-shaped eyes, a crown of finger-length braids and a quiet, deliberative demeanor that occasionally surrenders a smile.

As we stand under a shade tree waiting for the tour bus, Marcus tells me what it feels like for him to be a student in Florida right now, that he is balancing a sense of empowerment and fear. I asked why he invoked fear, and he said: “Because you can’t help but feel it.”

His mother tells me that she signed him up for the tour because he was frustrated by the feeling that there was so much of his history that he didn’t know.

The next tour stop was in Live Oak, at the graveside of Willie James Howard, a teenager lynched because he wrote a love letter to a white girl. Her father kidnapped Howard from his home at gunpoint, took him to a bluff overlooking the Suwannee River and offered the boy an impossible choice: take a bullet from a barrel aimed at his head or jump — with his hands and feet bound — and take his chances in the water.

The boy chose the river. The river won.

As Dunn told the story of Howard — whom he has described as Florida’s Emmett Till — Marcus’s face rippled as he repeatedly clenched his jaw and furrowed his brow. Howard was then the same age as Marcus is now: 15. As he told me: “That could have been me.”

Dunn called the students forward to touch Howard’s gravestone, which they did, one at a time. Marcus held back, but eventually stepped forward, bent down and pressed his open palm to the stone. He held it there, then slowly released, later telling me that when he touched it, he “felt a sense of serenity.”

As the group made its way to the spot along the river where Howard leapt to his death, a local radio station replayed an interview between DeSantis and Sean Hannity in which DeSantis called the Advanced Placement course in African American studies that he has vocally opposed “garbage” and “neo-Marxist indoctrination.”

The message — like the message in several of DeSantis’s broadsides aimed at academic freedom and so-called wokeness — is a medley of buzz-wordy circumlocution.

Too much of the debate about DeSantis’s cynical censorship craze has centered the opinions of adults, the theories of politicians and the feelings of white children — feelings presumed to be hurt if they encounter, in class, some of our history’s bleakest episodes.

But what about the other children, the roughly 600,000 Black students in Florida’s public schools, like Marcus, searching for a history that includes them — a history of them — who now feel targeted and afraid? Do they not matter in this debate? What about their needs and their feelings?

My conversations with Marcus echo those I recently had with another 15-year-old student from Florida, Adrianna Gutierrez, who identifies as Afro-Latina and as a lesbian, and therefore feels the brunt of both DeSantis’s anti-Black studies and history push and his anti-L.G.B.T.Q. push, including his state’s Don’t Say Gay law.

Adrianna called the situation in Florida “surreal” and said it feels like things are in a “state of chaos,” all of which has pushed her toward activism.

She said the first protest she attended, late last year, was “scary” because although she knew some people didn’t like her for who she was, she had never come face-to-face with hate as intense and concentrated as it was among the counterprotesters who were there.

As she recalled it, many of the counterprotesters brought young children with them, carried signs with slogans about school being a “place to learn and not teach about transgenderism” and they yelled, “Protect our children.”

But who’s going to protect children like Marcus and Adrianna, children who want to know our full history; who want to find themselves and be themselves and deserve to feel safe in the pursuit? Hiding the complexities or harsher truths of the past from them is to rob them of tools they need to navigate and survive in a still-hostile world, one in which horrors aren’t confined to graves nor queer people confined to closets.

On the last stop of the “Teach the Truth” tour, Dunn drove the group down an ivory-colored dirt road in the Rosewood community to a wooded area he’s converting into a remembrance park for the victims of the Rosewood Massacre.

He told the children about a tense encounter in September, when he visited the site with another group, including his son, and the neighbor across the street charged at them in his truck while yelling the n-word and “almost killed my son.” The neighbor was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

As Dunn told the story, a placard next to the neighbor’s fence was visible. It read: “DeSantisland: Land of Liberty.”

Who Would Fight The Bigots?

Posted on by under education, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

I generally steer clear of religious topics.  I am a non-religious person and I realize that I am in the minority here.  I respect my friends’ beliefs, their religious choices, but I do not share them for a number of reasons.  I am a realist who, since around the age of three, needs to see to believe.  That said, having been raised in a Jewish/Catholic household, I know a little about both religions, and having been married to a Protestant Christian for 15 years, I know a little about those beliefs as well.  That said, what I read yesterday caused my jaw to drop to the floor, though perhaps it shouldn’t have.

The Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday ousted its second-largest congregation — Saddleback Church, the renowned California megachurch founded by pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren.  Why?  Because that church had the audacity to have a woman pastor!!!  Le GASP!!!!  Perish the thought!  Everyone knows that women belong in the kitchen cooking meals for their beloved husbands, else barefoot and pregnant, bringing more little ones onto a planet that can barely sustain those it already holds!

If you felt the earth move under your feet last night, it was likely Susan B. Anthony and other suffragettes rolling over in their graves!

The “Executive Committee” of the Southern Baptist Convention also voted to oust five other congregations — four over the issue of women as pastors and one over the issue of sexual abuse.

The grounds for this misogynistic decree putting women once again into a subservient role?  When Southern Baptists last updated their official statement of belief — The Baptist Faith and Message — in 2000, they added this clause: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

And then there’s this that I found on Diane Ravitch’ blog …

Pensacola Christian College canceled a six-man group of acapella singers because it had reason to believe that one of the singers was gay. The concert was cancelled two hours before it was scheduled to begin. An audience of more than 5,000 people was expected. The group had performed there in the past. Actually, the group acknowledged that two singers were gay. Why the College found it objectionable to hear a gay man (or two) singing in an ensemble is not clear. Did college officials worry that the sound of his voice might turn students gay? It seems likely that the bigoted Governor DeSantis has lowered the standards of civility across the state.

So much bigotry, so much hate … these are just two examples, but similar discriminatory practices are taking place everywhere we look – in our own government, in schools, businesses, restaurants.  Crimes against women, against the LGBTQ community, against Blacks, against Jews are in the news every single day.  Here are just a few headlines from the last day or two:

  • Nazis Harass Audience Outside Broadway Musical

  • “Jesus Is King” Woman Charged With Hate Crime Arson Of Manhattan Restaurant’s Rainbow Pride Flag

  • Shapiro Host: I’d Rather Die Than Have A Trans Child

Bigotry has become the mantra for the Republican Party and their rhetoric fuels the flames of the masses who seem incapable of thinking for themselves.  I’m disgusted by this nation.  Yes, there are good people here, just as there are everywhere, but they seem to be in the minority some days.

It is depressing to see a nation so divided by the very thing that should unify it: diversity.  It makes one want to pull the covers up over their head in the morning and refuse to face another day.   But then, if we all did that … who would fight the bigots?  Sigh.

You Catch More Flies …

Posted on by under education, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

My mother had an expression I heard often as a child:  “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”  As a child, it made no sense to me, for who wants to catch flies anyway?  However, as I grew older, it came to make a great deal of sense, although I don’t always heed the wisdom.  In 2017, I wrote a post about a man named Daryl Davis , a Black man who reached out to KKK members, who won over people with dialogue, compassion, and understanding rather than fighting hate with hate.  This morning, I came across another such story, one of a man filled with hate who learned to love instead, thanks to a group of Muslims in Muncie, Indiana.

A stranger planned to bomb my mosque. He became a member instead.

By Bibi Bahrami

25 January 2023

Several years ago, an unfamiliar man showed up at my little mosque, a squat brick building on the side of a four-lane highway in Muncie, Ind. He had a large U.S. Marine Corps logo and a sketch of a small skull with a lightning bolt tattooed on his right arm. His face was flush, he barely made eye contact, and his fists were clenched. He seemed angry.

Naturally, we saw potential danger. In these days of intense cultural division, hatred against Muslims is palpable, and our places of worship have been the targets of terrible crimes. But we also sensed vulnerability in this stranger. My husband, an Afghan refugee and a gentle physician, welcomed the man with a heartfelt hug. Later, I sat alone with him in our mosque library — to share a smile and ask his name, to offer comfort and show him respect.

Why, you might ask, would I put myself in this position? When I was a young girl growing up in Afghanistan, I met troubled men like this at the homeless shelter run by my father. And when I fled the war in Afghanistan to a refugee camp in Pakistan as a teenager, I cared for many needy people. I have always believed in the idea that we must welcome the stranger, the person in need. And that if we search for common ground with all those we meet, we will discover our shared humanity, and we will all be better for it.

As the stranger and I sat on a green vinyl couch, surrounded by leather-bound books, he finally started to make eye contact. I learned that his name was Richard “Mac” McKinney, that he had served 25 years in the military, and that he had a wife and daughter. Over the next few weeks, Mac began making regular visits to the mosque, joining us for meals and sharing stories about his family and his time in the military.

I continually looked for ways to help him feel valued by entrusting him with responsibilities around the mosque: leading meetings, participating in prayers, even standing by the door as our resident security guard. I could tell this gave him a sense of purpose. Not long after that, he joined our community of about 200 by becoming a member of the mosque.

It wasn’t until months later that I heard unsettling rumors. Some congregants claimed they’d heard that when Mac first came to the mosque, he was on a reconnaissance mission. That he’d built a bomb to blow up the mosque and murder us.

I knew immediately what I needed to do. I invited Mac to my house for a meal of traditional Afghan food: homemade bread, chicken, kebabs, rice, eggplant, a green yogurt dip seasoned with cilantro and lime. He devoured the food. When he was done, I looked him in the eye.

“Is it true, Richard?” I asked. “Were you planning to kill us?”

He looked down. He was ashamed but answered honestly. He confessed that when he had first arrived at the mosque, he had planned to murder us by blowing up the building with an IED he had built himself.

“What were you thinking, Brother Richard?”

He explained that in the military, he had been at war with Muslims for years, and that he had developed a deep hatred in his heart. But he went on to say that the way we had treated him, with compassion and kindness, had changed his mind. He said we had given him a place to belong. We had shown him what true humanity is about.

From left, Richard “Mac” McKinney, Jomo Williams, Saber Bahrami and Bibi Bahrami. (David Herbert)

Of course, these stories don’t always go this way. In 2015, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., Dylann Roof entered a Bible study as a seemingly curious participant but quickly transformed into a terrifying mass murderer, killing nine church members. Events like this are horrifying. But I refuse to give up hope.

We live in a time in which people have stopped talking to those who don’t share their views. It’s easy to despair. But I believe that if we continue down this road, we will never understand one another, never find our shared humanity, never have peace. If we truly want to heal our society, we need to find forgiveness in our hearts.

That’s why, in the end, our community chose to forgive Richard and allow him to remain. In fact, he not only stayed with us but also became president of our little brick mosque on the edge of the highway.

I realize that not everyone will be faced with a situation as extreme as ours. But today, tomorrow or next week, you might meet a stranger, someone who looks or thinks differently from you. It might be easy to ignore this person, to look the other way. Instead, I challenge you to smile. Ask their name. Learn a little about them. You might be surprised at what can happen.

Netanyahu Returns

Posted on by under Social commentary, Political commentary, Global Issues, religion, Racism & Bigotry, Law and justice, History

In June 2021, just 18 months ago, I wrote …

“Israel’s Prime Minister for the past 12 years, Benjamin Netanyahu, is officially out of power.  In his place is Naftali Bennett who was sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister on Sunday, after winning a confidence vote with the narrowest of margins, just 60 votes to 59.

What this will mean remains to be seen.  Over the past 12 years, Netanyahu has dominated Israeli politics. He’s not only successfully implemented a series of right-wing policies, such as entrenching Israel’s presence in the West Bank, but also consolidated a dangerous amount of power in his own hands. He is currently on trial for corruption charges stemming from, among other things, his attempt to buy off media outlets.”

Given the amount of turmoil and political chaos here in the U.S. over the past several years, it’s no surprise that I have not kept up as much as I would like with events ‘round the globe, so imagine my shock when I read last month that Netanyahu will be returning to power.  According to an article on November 3rd in Al Jazeera …

A coalition led by the right-wing former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won a majority of seats in the 120-seat parliament, or Knesset, allowing the controversial figure to return to power.

Final election results announced on Thursday show that Netanyahu and his ultranationalist allies – many of whom were considered beyond the pale in Israeli politics only a few years ago – won 64 seats in the 120-seat parliament, with 32 of those seats going to Netanyahu’s party, Likud.

As prime minister-delegate, Netanyahu is in the process of forming Israel’s most extreme right-wing government to date.  Two groups of people stand to lose the most in the immediate future:  Palestinians and the LGBTQ community.  A moving article by a Palestinian lawyer, Diana Buttu, helps us understand some of the trepidation by Palestinians living in the West Bank, saying that, “The atmosphere of racism is so acute that I hesitate to speak or read Arabic on public transportation. Palestinian rights have been pushed to the back burner.”

I find it amazing that a nation populated by the descendants of the most persecuted people ever in history can be so bigoted against another group of people.  Did the Jewish people learn nothing from the fact that another racist, Adolf Hitler, was directly responsible for murdering some six million of their grandparent’s generation, for trying to eradicate their entire populace?  I’ve said before that Netanyahu is a bigot, and that so many were willing to vote his party back into power, knowing he would be once again elevated to Prime Minister, makes me wonder what the people of Israel are thinking … or are they even thinking?  Are they like some portion of people in this country who don’t think about who would be the best leader, but rather who puts on the best show?

Already Netanyahu’s new coalition allies are pondering laws against the LGBTQ community.  Netanyahu is set to form the most ultranationalist and religious government in Israel’s history between his Likud movement and several openly anti-LGBTQ parties. This has raised fears among Israel’s LGBTQ community that the new government, expected to take office in the coming week, will roll back gains made for LGBTQ rights in Israel in recent years.  Netanyahu insists that there will be no harm to LGBTQ rights in his upcoming government, but already several of his coalition partners are planning to curtail the rights of the LGBTQ community.

One member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, has posited that hospitals should be allowed to refuse to serve LGBTQ people.  Another said that private business owners, such as hotel operators, should be allowed to refuse service to LGBTQ “if it harms their religious feelings.”  Harms their religious feelings???  WTF???

Again, I shake my head at the bigotry coming out of a country peopled by those who suffered the most from the same sort of bigotry 70 years ago.  I see no good to come out of Netanyahu’s return to power and I find it highly puzzling.  Netanyahu is set to be sworn in on Thursday, although I understand there are still some hurdles to be scaled before that can happen.  On an international level, I see this as yet one more right-wing authoritarian regime being added and I find it deeply concerning.

Not A Nice Man

Posted on by under Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

The following is from an email by evangelical Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an ultra-conservative ‘Christian’ hate group …

Earlier this week, President Biden signed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, which not only codifies same-sex marriage into federal law but also opens wide the door to endless litigation and persecution of those who hold to a biblical and natural view of marriage.

I won’t mince words. There’s no denying that this is a tremendous blow to religious freedom in America. Countless God-fearing Americans could face the wrath of activist bureaucrats, leftist politicians, and militant LGBTQ activists as they seek to live out their deeply held convictions.

That’s why I’m humbly asking for your support in the final weeks of 2022. We must raise $400,000 by the end of the month to continue pushing back against the Biden agenda in 2023.

Who will stand up to this insidious assault on the children of America? With your help, we will!

I’m betting that enough people will believe his lies, his fear-mongering, and his ‘doomsday’ scenario about the “assault on the children” that he won’t have any trouble getting that $400,000 … most will come from people who work hard every day trying to pay their bills and put food on the table, and Perkins will have no remorse, for he is not a good man.  He is a bigot inside and out, so much so that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has listed Perkins’ group as an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” whose “false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science” in an effort to block LGBTQ civil rights have led to violence.  And what, I wonder, does he think his $400,000 will buy?  Does he think he will reverse the law with it?  Will he pay members of Congress to vote to strike down or reverse the law?  Or perhaps he’ll just pocket the money. Oh, and just as an aside, Mr. Perkins’ personal net worth is around $200 million.  Seems if he needs funding, he could write himself a check.

It will be poetic justice when one day, one of his five children comes to him and says, “Dad, I’ve got something to tell you … I’m gay.”

Rights And Freedoms — Part II — Freedom Of Religion

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

As I noted in my post of December 2nd, I am doing a brief ‘mini-series’ about ‘rights’ as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and how they are often abused or misinterpreted.  This post is Part II of that series.

1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 15 December 1791

The ‘freedoms’ that are guaranteed to the people of this nation under the U.S. Constitution are often misunderstood, sometimes intentionally, and other times out of genuine confusion.  But I would like to make one thing very clear … a ‘right’ is a right for everyone.  If I give you a chocolate bar and tell you it’s okay to eat it, that doesn’t give you the right to force someone else to eat a chocolate bar.

Specifically today I’m addressing a touchy topic:  freedom of religion.  Let’s start with the facts.  This is what the First Amendment has to say about it …

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

These are known as the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause.  Together with the constitutional provision prohibiting religious tests as a qualification for office these clauses promote individual freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Where in this simple sentence does it state or imply that any one religion is the sole or ‘official’ religion of the country?  Where does it say that one person has the right to force another to share their beliefs or values?  It doesn’t.  It doesn’t actually even say that anybody has the right to any religion, only that Congress shall not make laws regarding religion or prohibiting religious practices.  For some, that would be enough.  Ask an atheist living in Iran … they would be thrilled to have such freedom.

Through the years, freedom of religion has been interpreted to mean one thing and another, and in recent years still another.  One of the most significant areas of debate is LGBTQ rights.  Let’s return for a moment to the chocolate bar analogy.  Say Judy is allergic to chocolate and cannot eat it, but her neighbor Bobby loves chocolate and is not allergic.  Now, Judy certainly has a right to steer clear of the Cadbury, just as Bobby has a right to buy it and devour it.  Are you with me so far?  What would you say, though, if Judy tried to make it illegal for anybody on her street to buy or eat chocolate simply because she cannot eat it?  Laughable, yes?

But it isn’t laughable when a person whose religious beliefs are that marriage can only be between a male and a female as identified at birth tries to force their views on an entire nation of 330 million people!  Okay, nobody is going to tell those people they can’t believe that, for it is their right.  However, not everyone shares those beliefs.  Other people who do not belong to person A’s church and do not share their beliefs, have rights too.  Joe and Thom have a right to fall in love and marry by law in most states, yet there are some who would take that right from them because and only because it is not in sync with their own religious beliefs.  I’m trying to be nice here, but that is bigotry, plain and simple.  It is saying that you do not have a right to be different than person A.  It is every bit as wrong as saying that Black people don’t have a right to live in your neighborhood or Jewish people don’t have a right to send their children to the same school your children go to, or women don’t have a right to earn the same pay as men for the same job.

Nowhere in the Constitution or any other government document does it say that one religion takes precedence over another.  You have the right to be you, and I have the right to be me, and Joe has the right to be him, as long as we do no harm to others by exercising our rights.  For Joe and Thom to be in love and marry does no harm to anybody, and yet … and yet millions of people would like to see their marriage declared illegal, would like to take away their rights. 

Religion is a choice, and here in the United States it is a choice that we are fortunate to be able to make freely, for there is no state-sponsored religion, no Sharia law, no religious mandates such as there are in other countries.  We should exercise that freedom as we see fit … each of us as individuals … but we should not attempt to force our views on others, for that is depriving them of their rights.  It’s all a matter of respect.  Live and let live.  Why is that so hard for some to understand?

Senator Rick Scott’s Narrow Mind

Posted on by under Global Issues, Personal, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

Speaking of Republicans … I do seem to do that a lot lately, don’t I?  They just give us so much fuel for the fires!  Republican Senator Rick Scott from Florida crosses my radar at least once a week, but I’ve largely learned to ignore him just as I have so many others.  He does, however, manage to make my antennae twitch when he goes all-out riding the bigot train as he did recently.

Last week, Scott was doing a radio interview (seems to me some members of Congress spend more time on the media circuit than they spend in the Capitol) when the host, Martha Zoller, brought up the topic of immigration.  Now, you might think that Scott, being an ultra-conservative Republican in this, the 21st century, would be completely against immigration, but you’d be wrong.  Oh no … Scott has a proposal:

“Why don’t we have a legal immigration system for the people that want to come and live our dream, that want to live, that believe in our Judeo-Christian values? Alright? Why don’t we want more? If we’re going to have more immigration, alright, let’s do that.”

Wow … I dunno, maybe some people would be happy living in a nation that only welcomes Christians, but … I personally value diversity.  Our closest friends are a family of immigrants from Iraq who came to the U.S. seven years ago and almost immediately we began learning from each other, became best friends, and still today remain so. Last year after my 11 days in the hospital, they cooked dinner for us every night for over a month!   I cherish what I have learned from them and our exchange of cultures.  I have tried and loved some Arabic foods, have picked up a few words of Arabic, though with my failing memory my attempts to say something in Arabic usually end in resounding laughter!  No, their skin is not lily-white, and no, they are not Christians, they are of the Muslim faith, but … so what???  They are wonderful people and my life is richer for knowing them!  And yet Mr. Rick Scott would shun them?

The United States was founded in part on freedom of religion.  That gives me the right to be a non-believer, that gives Rick Scott the right to be a Christian, and it gives my neighbors the right to be Muslim.  If this country tilts toward Rick Scott’s vision, then we are no longer the United States of America that was established by the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.  And if we allow this abominable sort of discrimination, then we are depriving ourselves of a myriad of opportunities to learn more about the world, to open our minds and our hearts. I have zero desire to live in a country of bigoted, narrow-minded people who think everyone must conform to their ways, their beliefs.

One last thing … I came across this a few days ago and found it so apt

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. ~Jimi Hendrix

Rights And Freedoms — Part I — Freedom of Speech

Posted on by under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 15 December 1791

Throughout the centuries, very few limitations have been placed on the First Amendment even as people pushed the envelope using it as cover for everything from child pornography to outright threats of violence.  Let’s make something perfectly clear up front here, since today all I hear is people proclaiming their ‘rights’:  Your freedom, your ‘right’ stops where it crosses the line of another person’s freedom or rights.  Period.

You have a right to exercise your freedom of religion by holding a religious ceremony for whatever purpose you see fit, but you cannot hold it on my lawn.  You have a right to tell me what you think of me, but not to threaten me or my family with bodily harm.  And I have a right to set limits in my own home, such as you do NOT have a right to bring a gun into my home. 

Two of my overseas friends last week, David in the UK and Andrea in Australia, both made essentially the same comment, that the United States has too many of the wrong sort of freedoms.  I didn’t have to think about it long … about 15 seconds, I think … to realize that they are both right and that I fully agree.  Our Constitution gives us a number of rights, but we have abused them, for we seem not to remember that with rights come responsibilities.  You have a right to say what you think, but also a responsibility not to cause harm.  You have a right to worship as you please, but also a responsibility to recognize and honour the fact that others have the same right and may not share your same views.

I was a teen during the Vietnam War years when protesting was almost a career for some, and yet I never saw the same sort of hatred, the incitement for violence, the outright lies that I am seeing in our country today.  Sure, young people were angry in the 1960s that our government was sending our young men – brothers, boyfriends, husbands – to fight a war halfway across the world that we knew could not be won.  But we didn’t threaten to kill.  We knew better than to cross certain lines of decency.

Not long ago, the Republican Party issued an edict of sorts claiming that the seditious attempted coup on January 6th 2021 was “Legitimate Political Discourse”.  My jaw still drops when I hear that.  NO, IT WAS NOT!  Police officers died defending the Capitol and democracy on that day. Property belonging to We the People was damaged, there were threats to the lives of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. And the goal was to overturn the will of the people, to deny our voices, to essentially overturn the United States government and the Constitution. It was not discourse, it was not civil, and it was NOT what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind back in 1787. 

I cannot condone, nor should anyone condone, the use of foul language or threats of bodily harm … that is not ‘freedom of speech’, that is incitement of violence.  When people condemn or threaten those in the LGBTQ+ community, that is NOT freedom of speech … that is robbing someone else of the freedom to live in safety, being who they are.  Again … your freedom STOPS at the point where it infringes on mine or another person’s.  You do NOT have the right to dictate who a person should marry, whether a woman should have a child or not, what religion – if any – a person observes, where they live, or what they believe.

We are a nation of rights and freedoms, but we have historically abused them, never more so than in this, the 21st century.  If we continue to abuse them, we will lose them.  No, that is not hyperbole … at some point, we will lose the freedom to say what’s on our mind if we cannot do so within the confines or decency and respect.  Perhaps James Madison, the chief author of the First Amendment, gave people too much credit for humanity, compassion, and human decency.  Perhaps they did not realize that at some point, destruction and inciting violence would be classified as ‘free speech’, else they might have put some constraints on that ‘right’.  Or, perhaps people then were kinder, more deserving of a nearly unlimited freedom of speech.

We hear a lot these days about individual ‘freedoms’ and ‘rights’ but very little about the responsibilities that accompany those freedoms and rights.  Over the course of the next week or two, I plan to do another post or two on other of our rights such as freedom of the press and the 2nd Amendment, the ‘right’ to bear arms.  Please feel free to make suggestions if there are other ‘rights’ you would like to see discussed.

This, That, and ‘TOONS!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Election 2022, Environmental Issues, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, religion, Social commentary

Until the past week, I was generally able to focus on a single issue or topic for an entire post, but my mind seems to be made of rubber these days and just bounces all over the place, hence I have done a number of posts with a variety of ‘mini-thoughts’.  This afternoon’s post is yet another such …

Apparently, some people wish to live in a nation where all people are controlled by a single religious belief set.  To those people I say, “Then please, feel free to relocate to Iran.  I would caution you, though, if you are a woman, you will be controlled, manipulated, and killed if you break the religious laws. If you are a gay person, you will be killed if it is discovered, no questions asked.”  Meanwhile, here in the United States, women are, at least in theory, given equal rights, although only for the past 100 years or so.  We now have the right to divorce our spouse, to own property in {gasp} our own name, receive equal pay for equal work, and even to … VOTE!  Okay, so we’re still working on that ‘bodily autonomy’ thing, but we’ll get there, because it’s important enough for us to fight tooth and nail for.  That’s not quite how it works over in Iran, but hey … if people want religious laws to dominate the people, they’ll just have to … get over the level of bigotry that is the foundation of such a society.  Meanwhile, here in the U.S. the majority of us fully support women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and realize it is nobody’s business whether a woman chooses to have children or who a person chooses to love.

I respect every person’s right to believe as they wish, to adhere to the religion of their choice or no religion, if that is their choice.  But what I cannot tolerate is people trying to force everyone into their own narrow-minded box.  One of the things that the United States is noted for is freedom of religion, freedom to believe as you choose.  You have the right to attend the church, mosque or synagogue of your choice and participate in the various rites & rituals of your religion. BUT … when politicians pander to a religious group that wants to impose their will on the entirety of the nation, they are attempting to rob us of one of our most fundamental constitutional freedoms.  Be a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew or a Jain, but don’t tell me that I have to believe as you do.  Freedom OF religion must also include freedom FROM religion as an option.  The United States is not and should not become a ‘Christian nation’ but is founded on the basis of welcoming people of ALL beliefs.

A reader recently commented the following in regard to my concern for the environment:

“Time for the USA to get the message. As far as destruction of the enviro, humans cause somewhere i between 0.00020% and o.00034% of global warming. We’ve seen far bigger periods of gobal warming and ice ages throughout recorded history. Guess why the ice desert Greenland is called Greenland. It was fuxn green when the first settlers arrived there. In late Roman times they made wine in England! And we had periods of unusual warm weather but also mini ice ages and freak storms not too far in the past. Vineta (Atlantis) happened in medieval times, Tenerife will probably split in two during our lifetimes. With or without our ‘help’.”

How does one even converse with someone who is so convinced their ignorant views are correct and who looks down their nose at those of us who believe the science that tells us human activities, particularly continually increasing emissions of CO2 are creating an environment that will no longer be able to sustain human … or most other … life within a relatively few short years?  I have come to the point that I no longer bother to respond to such, for there is no give-and-take, no meaningful dialog, just arrogance and an unwillingness to consider facts.

Lindsey Graham said that if Catherine Cortez Masto beats Adam Laxalt in the race for the senate seat from Nevada, then it was fraud.  So, let me get this straight:  If the candidate Lindsey likes loses, it was fraud, but if his candidate wins, it was a fair and honest election.  Sounds to me like a rather juvenile viewpoint, rather like the ten-year-old child turning over the checkerboard and running in tears to her room and slamming the door because her dad won the game.  “No fair!  You cheated!”  But then, I guess the ten-year-old mentality is in keeping with the Republican modus operandi of late, ever since they decided to make a ‘man’ with a funny creature atop his head, a pocky complexion, a contorted mouth, and lies flowing from his mouth their “Supreme Leader”.  As of 8:49 p.m. last night, Cortez Masto is the projected winner of the race for the senate seat from Nevada, giving the Democrats a majority in the U.S. Senate.  I wonder what ol’ Lindsey will have to say this morning?  Will he have the decency to keep his mouth shut, or will he whine and demand that the election be overturned?

My jaw dropped last night when I logged onto Twitter and found that an off-the-cuff remark I had left on someone’s tweet had gained 1,281 likes, 92 retweets, and 51 comments!!!  I’M A TWITTER CELEBRITY!!!  (just kidding)  I have never had more than 30 or so likes on any tweet or tweet comment I’ve made.  Never!  This is the tweet and my response that gained so much notoriety …

And I conclude with a few political ‘toons I’ve run across over the past few days …