[ Post a Response | Tao Speaks ]
Posted by Butch
on 11/12/2008, 10:12 pm, in reply to "Re: My Great- Aunt Sybil"
75.88.43.X
--Previous Message--
:
: --Previous Message--
:
: Yes, there are good-hearted people in every
: faith and tradition. At the same time--from
: a social justice perspective--we are all of
: us responsible for what we aid or abet,
: silently or explicitly.
:
: Fundamentalist religion is a toxic,
: corrosive element in America today.
: Examples of this are everywhere, the most
: recent being the Mormon Church's efforts in
: rolling back social equality for lesbians
: and gay men in California--as evidenced by
: the church's spearheading of the
: recently-passed Proposition 8. Any Mormon
: who did not speak out against their church's
: involvement in that issue is partially to
: blame for the resulting travesty of justice.
:
: Like my Great-Aunt Sybil, people of good
: heart and good will live by their beliefs
: but don't try to impose them on others. This
: country was founded on the principle of
: religious freedom; the Christians who try to
: impose their beliefs as law are treading on
: dangerous ground. They also seem to have a
: deaf ear to Jesus' words: "Judge
: not". It's strange to hear the most
: 'religiou' people being the most hateful and
: judgemental.
:
: Ah, well, we dodged the bullet this year.
: Religious freedom is alive and well in the
: U.S.
:
josef,
Thank you for sharing the Obama interview with the rest of us.
I too voted for Obama, as did my wife, my son and my daughter-in-law. Enough is enough.
I am convinced Obama is a leader. It is up to the rest of us to prove him a great leader. I also think his wife is crucial to his success. She strikes me as being a really good woman to have at his side.
I agree with most of the sentiment expressed by Obama in the interview. I can also understand his loyalty to Reverand Wright. A loyalty the good Reverand did not share with Obama. Wright is selfish. I do not see very much selfishness in Obama.
To Steve's point about members of a religion being responsible for the actions of that religion, or something to that effect, I can understand his feelings. But I do not necessarily agree with him. Not very many Catholics think pedophilia is a laughing matter. Should we blame the lay Catholic for the sins of some of their priests? Should lay members wear shirts condemning the actions of some of their priests?
Personally, I have found people to be like apples on a tree. Some are good and some are bad.
As for our militant friend Steve, I think his cause would be better served if he focused more on those that support gay marriage than simply condemning those that are against it.
For me the issue of gay marraige was finally resolved when I thought of it in these terms. If someone has the right to get married and divorced over and over again then how can any adult be denied the right to marry the person of their choice at least once... and yet at the same time people have a right to believe that marriage is exclusively a heterosexual bond. What to do?
Allow Civil Unions with "all" the legal rights of Marriage. Allow churches, religions, that choose to do so to marry gay couples. But don't give gays the right to sue a church that refuses to marry them because of their religious beliefs. I don't have a problem with making rules to protect minorities as long as those rules don't violate the rights of others.
If this doesn't work for Steve then I am sorry. We don't always get what we want.
Again, thank you for sharing the interview with Obama. He chooses his words carefully, but candidly.
94
Message Thread:
« Back to thread
"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Webmaster: zentao00@yahoo.com Donations help to support, upgrade and expand the Tao Speaks! community..