Sadly yesterday the voters in North Carolina decided to narrowly and insensitively define marriage by approving Amendment One. It is rather preposterous that such an ideal should be defined by a public vote. The key word here is public. Marriage is a private matter. It should be up to each individual couple to decide on their own personal definition of marriage. In a broad sense, if you truly love someone and wish to devote the rest of your life to them, that is a very personal decision and not up for any vote or for any court to decide. How strange that in a country that was founded on the precept of freely practicing your religion of choice, without fear of persecution,  we should once again try to tell people how to think and how to behave. In a country that purports to be against bullying many of the population have turned into bullies!

Ironic too that one main source of this need to control and define the way people should behave and live comes from the Christian church. Dr. Franklin Graham was on television telling us how to vote. The very people that should be striving to emulate Jesus Christ have turned instead into sad and fear mongering vassals of insecurity and hatred of all that they do not understand and therefore fear. Jesus Christ preached tolerance, a detail that many of them conveniently choose to ignore. One passage that the pastor never ignores is the part of the bible which references tithing to the church. Fascinating how a book that was written by poor people scraping out an existence in the desert thousands of years ago and tripping on God knows what can be twisted and perverted in our day and age to confuse and confound so many people.

Doubt not that if Jesus Christ did indeed return to this earth amongst his followers he would be labeled a lunatic. Unless he seriously kicked some ass to protect himself, which never was his style one will notice, he would be summarily be shot by an enthusiastic member of the NRA or the John Birch Society. If he did seriously kick some ass he would be called out as the anti-Christ and the results would be the same.

Will mankind ever be civilized enough to resolve these issues of humanity by relying on logic and perception and not some microscopic view of the universe? The year is 2012. By now we should be seeing some hope of a new way of thinking. The world is indeed hungry for answers and not some skewed perceptions from small minded hate mongers. When the prophet arrives will it be too late? Or is the time of prophets past altogether? Perhaps a giant supercomputer can tell our feeble minds the answers we crave. Or maybe the prophet is a woman! Now that’s a controversial idea!

“I have no objection to any person’s religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and argue the point with him.”
― Herman Melville

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying.” — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Get off the cell phone and Drive! — Jake Shween