Good News in CA

Thank God we live in a Republic rather than a Democracy ... a Republic in which elected and/or appointed officials are empowered to make decisions for us.

As in the case of fair housing in CA, early 60s, the courts determined that restrictive housing covenants were unconstitutional, despite the fact that 65% of California voters wanted to retain them in Prop 14.

I think, too, about Civil Rights and Women's Suffrage ... it was the leadership of the courts that helped us break free of the past and shed the chains of structural racism and discrimination. Yes, both yet exist in practice and attitude for many Americans, but without official approval. That's a huge step to take, and today in CA, another huge step was taken for civil right and Marriage Equality.

And it looks like the legal arguments are in place - whatever perspective some may personally hold on LGBT persons and practices, there can no longer be a constitutional prohibition on their marriage and the rights that pertain thereto.

For a detailed examination on why the proponents of Prop 8 feared a trial such as has just been concluded, check out the following article at HuffingtonPost. In a nutshell, the "legal arguments" against Marriage Equality simply do not stand up in an American Court of Law.

I have many friends who oppose Marriage Equality and ordination for practicing LGBT persons, and though I cannot agree with them, I cannot deny either their feelings or opinions.  Yet they are beginning to realize that moral and theological arguments against Marriage Equality cannot be translated into civil law.

As for me, I long for the day when I will be able to officiate at all weddings. That day is coming, I believe, and it will be a good day for all of us.  

The Palmer Raids - a Lesson from History

Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, in the full swing of America's Red Scare, forecast the imminent revolt of left-wing radicals who would, "on a certain day…rise up and destroy the government at one fell swoop." 


Though Congress was reluctant to grant him the requested funding, he proceeded to raid suspected organizations, making labor unions a particular target. As part of his effort, he got an injunction against a planned strike against the coal industry by the United Mine Workers.


August 1, 1919, he appointed a 24-year old to oversee and develop a new division in the Justice Department, The General Intelligence Division. Oh, by the way, the 24-year old was one J. Edgar Hoover.


With a new Secretary of Labor appointed by President Wilson, Palmer's methods came under scrutiny, including a predicted "radical uprising" on May Day, 1920. But when said event failed to materialize, his support wained.


To read more of this fascinating, and frightening, time in America, check out the Wikipedia article under Palmer Raids and on Palmer himself, a Quaker and a one-time progressive. 


As I read about the Palmer Raids, I found myself thinking of what's happening in Arizona and the suggestion of some politicians to rewrite the 14th Amendment.


Call it xenophobia ... call it whatever you want ... I call it sick!


Palmer quickly moved outside the law, and though the law eventually caught up with him and undid his ferocious work, Palmer, with his appointment of Hoover, insured that a dark stain of xenophobia would have a secure place in the American heart.


Like those who followed him, Fr. Coughlin and Joseph McCarthy, Palmer cried wolf again and again, fueling hatred and suspicion across the land, accusing Congress of failing to defend the Constitution against enemies within.


A tried and true technique, to be honed to perfection by Adolf Hitler.


A tried and true technique embraced by today's radical conservatives.


In tumultuous times, fear-mongers and hyper-patriots gain the ear of millions. 


In the end, they will have run their cycle; those who drink deeply at the wells of fear and hatred always do themselves in, becoming increasingly ridiculous in their claims and proposals, driving away most of their adherents. 


Radical conservatives can and will damage America's heart, but saner voices will prevail.  

Lessons from history.

News from Holland - MI, that is

A good friend writes the following from Holland, Michigan:

Update.  I don't have to send a letter to Western Theological Seminary urging them to rebuke one of their large donors Mr. Jack DeWitt for his reprehensible ad in the Holland Sentinel.  The ad. was an anti-gay diatribe.

Request Foods, I'm sure due to pressure from Campbell's Food, had a retraction in the paper this morning.  They repudiate the ad.  It wasn't Request Foods; it was the primary investor in the company who used the company name instead of his own.  While Request Foods isn't naming the person everyone knows it is Jack DeWitt.

Good letters continue to appear in the paper opposing the advertisement.

There is still hope for Holland.

Additionally, Pete Hoekstra, US Congressperson from Holland, running for Republican nomination for governor LOST!  The Republicans chose a social moderate and fiscal conservative instead.  Who woulda thunk?  Two rightwingers split the vote allowing the moderate to win.

Also, the local right wing candidate who is the regional director of the Family Research Council, cosponsor of the dreadful advertisement, lost in his bid to take Hoekstra's congressional seat.

It's a good day in Holland.

Does Sin Render Truth Indiscernible?

Just a few hurried thoughts:

Certainly, all are guilty of such things, but to suggest that there is no difference in the values popular people hold is to close our eyes to a simple reality: values are always incarnate in specific people, and if given a public platform, those values are trumpeted, and folks are influenced, and no all values are created equal. After all, Al Capone had his values, too.

To suggest that we're all alike in our sin is true enough, sort of, but akin to suggesting that Hitler and Churchill were both men of strong opinion, and leave it at that. Or both sinners, which they were.

But it's the content of their opinion that counts. Surely, Paul was a sinner, too, and he makes that clear, but we still listen to him; though Paul's a sinner, we don't discount what he said.

Those who use immigrants and the poor to further their own agenda are failing the American People. Having listened to Rush and Glenn for a long time, I grow increasingly convinced that these men pose a serious threat to our nation's soul. 

It took a long time for Germans to see who Hitler really was, but folks like Barth and Bonhoeffer, early on, saw it, and they saw it because they were infused with the gospel of the Kingdom of God (see the Barmen Declaration).

This morning, in Barth's biography, one of the most chilling photos I've ever seen: the lead pastor of the German Reich (Yup, they had all kinds of pastors lining up) at the head of a procession to dedicate and install Nazi flags in a German Church.

I ask you: what are Rush Limbaugh's values, or Glenn Beck? Can we actually name them?

And compare them to the Apostle Paul, or Jeremiah. Is there no difference? Does sincerity alone guarantee truth? Doesn't truth have a content?

Why would any of us choose to listen to a Billy Graham and not a Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin? What's the difference. They're all sincere; they all believe fervently. They're all sinners, too boot. So, what's the difference? Is there no means to measure anything? Then, indeed, the inmates of the asylum have taken it over!

FB 7.28.10

Spend, Spend, Spend - Make Sense?

Turn on radio, read an article, scan the internet - the prevailing word of wisdom: we gotta spend more money. The American Consumer (sounds hideous, doesn't it?) has to dig in and get going - spend, spend, spend!

An economy built upon mindless spending and ceaseless consumption is just plain silly, and destructive of the soul, the family and the environment.

"We work in order to spend and we spend in order to work, and the more we spend the faster we must work" (Miroslav Volf, "Against the Tide," p.12) Like a squirrel in it's own spinning cage - going nowhere fast.

First, such a pace is destructive of the soul, as it transforms us into a consumer - like a toilet or a garbage disposal or some flesh-eating bacteria. A mindless, bloated, gobbling machine never satisfied and always yearning for the happiness that's just a purchase away.

Second, it's destructive of the family, as Mom and Dad spend more hours at work, fill the house with toys for the children that are played with once and then thrown into the closet, only to be sold in next summer's garage sale for 25 cents. Children watch Mom and Dad sell their souls to the company store; they learn how to use credit cards; they look at their playmates enviously or imperiously, depending upon the status of their possessions; they are distanced from the natural world of hikes and kites and butterflies; they are overweight and physically out of shape; the family doesn't know its neighbors, and no one has the time for a picnic.

Third, we're pillaging the environment to make junk to put under the next Christmas tree - plastic comes from oil, and once it's plastic, it's plastic forever, mostly to end up in landfills. Our homes are piles of stuff with a roof over it all, and we build storage units to hold more of our stuff. And when we divorce, or die, we fight over the stuff.

And in order to have more stuff, it has to be cheap, so we outsource the jobs, destroy the middle class, rely on credit and buy more junk.

Enough!

How about an economy built upon savings, careful and thoughtful purchases of well-built items made here in the US?

How about consuming less and spending more time with one another?

How about being satisfied with the things we have and basing our life not upon what we have but who we are?

How about working fewer hours and taking more time to stroll through the nearby woods?

How about more vacation time? And it doesn't have to be a stellar cruise on a billion-dollar ship, or a madcap escapade at some Dizzy World that'll take every dollar we've got and leave us tired and cranky, but a couple of weeks in the mountains in a small cottage.

How about filling up the American banks with our savings, so that the American banks and government don't have to borrow from the world?

How about slowing things down and recovering the manufacturing sector of America, with TVs and washing machines that are more expensive and better built to last.

A slower economy with lower unemployment.

A soul satisfied with less things in order to have more of life.

A society less inclined toward violence and war.

Smaller inequity gaps.

Families that truly know one another and know their neighbors, too.

Wall Street reigned in.

The American Consumer transformed into the American Giver, the American Worker, the American Guardian of the Environment.

When George Bush stood in the rubble of 9/11 and told us to go out and shop, I realized just how sick we've become, and sick it is.

An economy built upon mindless spending is too fragile to maintain and can only collapse again and again.

We need a robust economy, not based upon spending, but savings and investments and real jobs.

We need to take a good long look at ourselves and no longer see ourselves as consumers but builders.

We had it once - the Greatest Generation understood those values.

We can lay claim to them again.

I'm Tough on Conservatives

I am tough on conservatives because they have repeatedly failed us - and there's no hope within their midnight-college discussions - the conservative philosophy is inherently flawed, which is why conservatives always crash and burn when they assume power. They make worthy opponents, no doubt, but lousy leaders.

All human progress has been driven by the liberal spirit - the vision of a better world wherein community is the core value, not a bunch of individuals competing like mad with one another to get to the top of some imagined hill. Conservatives remind me of young children who imagine themselves all grown up and then become resentful of Mom and Dad for telling them to be home before midnight.

Whether it be issues of slavery or making the Bible available, or St. Francis and the animals, or education or women's suffrage or Civil Rights, or universal healthcare, or medicare, environmental progress - it's all the liberal spirit.

If conservatives had their way, we'd be a feudal society, with the bulk of wealth held by the few, and the rest working their tails just to make it. The conservatives would be hangers-on in the court of the king - beautiful bosomy women, aging barons, their snotty offspring, all enjoying their privilege. O golly, it sounds like what we have right now.

Conservative philosophy has a certain "college" feel to it - a sort of "every man for himself" - it's terribly unrealistic ... it never holds up in reality.

Too Many Dumb Boobs

On the news yesterday, it was announced that President Obama has put a hold on all offshore oil drilling.

Immediately, there was a cut to an Ohio oilfield equipment worker who said, "I make pipe for drilling rigs. What's Obama doing for me?"

I thought, "You dumb boob!"

Tens of thousands of jobs are in peril around the Gulf because of a major oil spill. An entire eco-system may be destroyed. Fisheries and tourism all in jeopardy, and this dumb Ohio Boob can only say, "What's Obama doing for me?"

America is sinking, not because of drugs or crazed secular humanists or leaping lesbians, but by the sheer weight of too many dumb boobs who haven't the wherewithal to think. We are losing our grasp of the common good and the big picture.

This poor jerk in Ohio ignores everything to mouth a stupid comment.

Did someone in the media tell him, "Now, be angry and frustrated" because that's the new tag line across CNN and everywhere else - "America is angry and frustrated."

Are we?

I don't think so.

Concerned and worried?

Likely.

But once again, is the media making news rather than covering it?

Between our preponderance of dumb boobs and even dumber boobs crafting the news, we're in a pickle of monstrous proportions.

Come on America, let's go back to school and engage the brain for a change.

Come on CNN and all the rest (I no longer include FOX in this mix), let's cover the news and find out what's really happening, and maybe you can even help the nation gain perspective on the big picture and the common good.

And by the way, I'm totally sick of Wolf Blitzer - this sanctimonious druid is nothing but a carnival sideshow barker inviting us "little boys and girls" into the tent to be titillated and fleeced by the appearance of news manipulated with smoke and mirrors.

And to the dumb boob in Ohio, can ya' give some thought to the Gulf Coast folks?

Can ya' see beyond your own backyard?

Get a grip and get a life.

Holy crap Batman. What are we going to do?