With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg
I was way too quick to dismiss
Barack Obama's book
The Audacity of Hope. It starts out as a bit of a civics lesson, and I was bored. Patience, patience. About midway through, in the chapters titled
Opportunity,
Faith and
Race, he really hits his stride. I'm falling a little in love with this guy. Despite the Weinberg quote I've offered above, I don't hate religion. I don't practice it, but I respect your right and inclination to worship all you want. I only ask that you respect my wish to tread my own path apart from your God. Barak has some interesting things to say about his (and our) religious beliefs and their place in politics. Read the book. I think you'll like it. Oh, and here's his view on gay marriage:
I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex-- nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity that the Sermon on the Mount.
I don't believe anything in the Bible is really God's word (part and parcel of not believing there
is a God, I suppose), but Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (see: beatitudes) is some seriously good shit, yo. If all the Christians (and everyone else, for that matter) actually practiced what J-Unit preached on said Mount? Molto problems solved.
6 comments:
Here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKsoXHYICqU
YOU slayed me with that last paragraph, dude. Good on you.
I'm beyond pissed off that none of the Democratic front runners will just say YES to full equality, with no equivocation. I despise the empty talk of the political arena.
That said, I'm beyond pleased with the progress the country as a whole is making on equality. Ten to fifteen years ago, the marriage debate was almost unthinkable, and the standard Democratic voter's position on gay rights was "Ew." Hopefully in another 10-15 years, we'll actually have our legal equality in full nationwide.
Hear, hear.
My sister and I always talk about how backwards my nieces are going to think we were, when they're older and we have to tell them that it used to be against the law for gays to marry.
Ideally, we'd have a candidate like that, Jen, but we don't. I don't think it's all empty talk, though, when someone talks about providing gay and lesbian people with all the rights and privileges we associate with "marriage", no matter what they call it. I know there is no "equal but separate", but it's a huge step in the right direction. A huge change that may necessitate some compromise to have an electable candidate. I'm actually really optimistic about the candidates we have for the Democrats. They are saying the things I want to hear about health care, education, gay rights, withdrawal from Iraq, the environment.....
Freakgirl, Obama does make that point as well. He wonders aloud if history will show him to be on the wrong side of this issue (full, equal marriage)....which I think, of course, it will.
Post a Comment