gay marriage in DC!

At long last gay marriage is allowed in DC, what a proud and exciting day!!

As with most happy events, there always seem to be a few stinkers who want to ruin the day, open a storm cloud on a big parade, etc. That was the job of Fred Phelps and his crew yesterday.

The infamous "God hates fags" crew was on hand to make sure that people could see them publicly wave their self-righteous fingers at love between two people. How did they get to DC? I'm not quite sure, I wish I could tell you a time machine from the eighteenth century, but I can't. That would be a lie.

Where would the world be without these fundamentalist religious nuts constantly reminding us how much god hates us?

I wake up every day wondering, does god love me? And of course I know the answer is no:

I live with a gay man who I platonically love and support. (hell)
I support a woman's right to choose. (hell)
I have premarital sex. (hell)
I am agnostic. (burning hell)

It's strange because I had always been taught growing up that God loves you no matter who you are or who you love. But Fred Phelps disagrees. Because, according to him, if god represents anything, it's shame and guilt. And luckily, for us sinners, he has rained down these representatives to remind us just how far into hell we all will be going.

Quiver lip, quiver

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controlling society

I had a great class the other night.

Last week was Religions of the World week in my class and we were discussing Christianity (and its 34,000 divisions). One of my students raised their hand and said that he grew up as a Christian in Guatemala. He always thought to himself that religion was just a way for people to control a society, a way of outlining rules they thought appropriate to keep people in line.

I had to hold back my applause.

I love my students, and I especially love teaching them how to question things. I'm not trying to convert the religious, not at all. I just love to see their appreciation when they begin to understand other religions and traditions. Or when they begin to understand the lessons they were taught growing up were perhaps not the absolute truth. Maybe the needles of our moral compasses are not set to true north. They are set instead to what others assume should be true north. It might not be enough to change how we act, but gaining the knowledge is at least a start to something bigger.

The students may be more valuable to me than I am to them.