Sharing The Human Experience

Good morning!

A few things this morning in the news that warrant mentioning... I call them “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” First the good (such as it is)...

D.C. Council Moves Toward Rights for Gay Couples

Washington (AP) - The D.C. Council is moving toward giving gay couples many of the same rights as married couples. But they stop short of endorsing gay marriage or civil unions.

It seems ironic to me that our nation’s capital would strive to recognize gay couples. I say strive, because when it really comes down to it, it’s a half-assed attempt for them to not feel so guilty about the total lack of legal support for gay couples.

Win or lose, I guess they will be able to say, “Well, we tried.” I used to take violin lessons from a violin master years ago. I couldn’t get a technique that I was trying for. I worked on it for weeks, and when he finally laid into me for not getting it, I said to him in disappointment, “I tried!”. He got in my face and said, “There is no TRY! You DO, or you DO NOT! All of life is this way!” He pissed me off so much that within a day of heavy concentration and discipline, I had the technique accomplished. No one tells me what I can’t do (except for getting married)!

Now the bad...

UTAH - Bill for cohabitants is shot down

Despite the support of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and the public, lawmakers have balked at granting cohabiting adults - gay or otherwise - marriage like rights.

Senate Bill 89 went down to defeat Tuesday with 18 senators opposing it and only 10 in favor.

“It’s time to call a spade a spade,” said Equality Utah Vice Chairman Scott McCoy. “This is not about their worries about Amendment 3. This is about the fact that they don’t want to do anything that would be beneficial for gay people.”

SB89 would have established a “mutual dependence benefits contract” form and required the Utah Health Department to keep track of such agreements, including rights of hospital visitation, end-of-life decision-making power and property inheritance rights. [...]

“We’re disappointed,” Huntsman Legislative Liaison Mike Mower said, shrugging. “This is something that we have been supportive of. Since the first days of Gov. Huntsman’s campaign, we felt it was a good opportunity to advance basic rights for all Utahns.”

I guess I should just say, “It’s Utah. That’s the way it is there. You didn’t expect enlightenment from the state did you?”

And now the ugly...

I was driving home last night, and listening to Larry King Live (transcript). He had a panel of evangelical ministers on his program to talk about different social issues. They talked about the war in Iraq, “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, how women are killing their unborn children through abortion, God’s punishment for all the sins that we have, gay rights, gay marriage, and gay adoption (my gay adoption poll).

Not surprising, there were two issues that dominated the show; gay marriage and abortion. They want abortion stopped, of course, but did say they felt that there would be a civil war of sorts if the law were ever overturned. I think they are right on that one.

It was tough to listen too. When it came to gay adoption, they said that two gays should never be able to adopt. One of them asked Larry, “Would you like your children raised by two men or two women?” Larry said, “I’d rather have them raised by two men than by two people hitting each other or two people screaming at each other or two people cheating on their income tax or two people cheating on each other, YES, I’d rather have them raised by gays.”

I never knew Larry King thought this way. I found myself saying out loud, “You Go Larry!!!”.

B. LAHAYE: ...And I want to make it clear right here, we’re not angry at homosexuals, really aren’t. We love homosexuals and we want to help them. And I know of hundreds...

KING: Why not let them live as they wish?

B. LAHAYE: Because...

KING: Why should the government care? The faith can do what it wishes. Why should the government care?

B. LAHAYE: We would like to rescue them from dying at an early age of diseases prevalent.

KING: How about male-female diseases?

B. LAHAYE: Well, it’s not killing off the population like it is with the gay community. Having children get the AIDS and it just goes on and on and on.

I wanted to tell Larry, “Talking to these people is about as effective as talking to a door knob.” It’s true. You will never win and they will never listen.

Although Brian McLaren, Founding Pastor of the Cedar Ridge Community Church, offered the most insightful thought of the evening, when responding to a caller to the program.

CALLER: I was raised in the Christian faith, and I also happen to be a gay man. And I just heard one of your panel members say that there’s no hatred towards the gay community, but that’s not how I see it. All I see is hate. And didn’t Jesus preach love? Aren’t we to love one another?

KING: Brian.

MCLAREN: Yeah, I am very sympathetic with your call. I see, even though we might say that people don’t individually hate, the language of culture wars -- war is a hate word. So I think we’ve got to get away from that kind of language. And I think one of the greatest things that Christians can do, especially Christians with the name evangelical, would be to start making some friends and invite their neighbors over, and get to know someone who’s gay, get to know someone who’s very different. And not to just fix them or argue with them, but really to understand them as a neighbor.

He’s right. I honestly don’t know if they hate us or not. I think an overwhelming majority of the religious right and evangelicals do indeed have an intense dislike for homosexuals. But, that is my perception, so that is my reality.

Every single time I am confronted with a law that keeps my family from having equality, the law has it’s roots in religion, every-single-time. And behind the people who are driving the law, is the far right religious folks.

To me, in my everyday life, that is hateful. It is hateful because through law, I am being diminished, and they don’t care. Do you honestly think that the 11 states who passed state constitutional amendments preventing equality for gay couples by denying them marriage was based in love? I actually feel safer traveling to Canada than I do some states within my own country. There are some states that I would actually fear going to. What does that say about my country?

All of this has happened in my own country, in the last two days:

South Dakota marriage amendment endorsed
Kansans to Vote on Gay Marriage Amendment
GOP's same-sex marriage flier denounced by Democrats
Bill to fix Utah Gay-Marriage Ban Loses
Virginia House OKs 'Traditional Marriage' plates
Idaho Marriage bill goes to Senate

This is how it feels at my end, the receiving end of legislation being drawn up daily from one state to the next, to let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I am part of the dregs of society, that my kind have little worth (unless society needs something from us), and that it is not desirable for us to share in the whole human experience.