My Big Announcement

I have decided to be rather reactionary. I have a proclamation to make in response to the proclamation that appeared in the Edmond paper. First things first, June weddings are still on. Brides, don't get out that calender yet, you're okay. The second is that last year June was also National Pride Month. They missed the boat on that. It's an unshocker if you hit on it a year after the first time. The third and most important thing I have to say?

God is not an asshole. Yes, you heard me. God is not an asshole. He is not that old grandpa with a beard that likes to poke human brains with a pencil to see if it will make the body jump. He already knows that would make the body jump. Poking human brains with a pencil to see what happens is something HUMANS would do. So is, for the record deciding entire groups of people need to die. I'd even go so far as to say that's a MANLY thing to do. Men come up with this stuff. Not God.

You see competing visions of this in scripture all throughout the pages. On one hand, "God" is telling Israel to go kill everyone who currently lives in the promised land then he's telling them to be kind to the stranger in their land. Demanding the blood of animals and sons and then and telling people to stop that because he desires mercy and not sacrifice. So who wants the blood? We do.

Yes. It's us. The asshole god is made in our image. God steps in and says no. Love says no. We stand with the crowd and yell "Crucify him!" because we are the ones who want blood. Christ was the final and most dramatic plea to "cut that out!" and even though we've done our best to work around that (the Church couldn't shed blood, but they could stretch you out on the rack?) the gospels still say no.

We can put our blinders on, and we can explain our way around it, but it's still there. God is not an asshole. He isn't setting us up to fail. He's patiently waiting for us all to come Home.

And the Jerk for Jesus award of the week goes to:

Paul Blair. Yep. He's the winner. Check out what this guy decided to put in the paper. Isn't that "special"?

I think we need to make sure he knows exactly what we think about it. In fact, I told him exactly what I think about it. I also told the editor of the publication it appeared in exactly what I think. I think you should too. The rules: Do NOT sink to this guy's level. Be nice. Sort of. Tongue in cheek nice. Use clean language. Behave yourselves. Seriously.

His email address is: pblair@fairviewbaptistedmond.org

Here is what I told him:

I had a friend link me to this page... Seriously? Did you really have to publish this?

I do realize that you like to be mean to people in public but don't you think you're going to alienate all the normal christians (myself included) who don't want to be embarrassed by this kind of idiocy in a public way?

For the record, I'm just making sure you get some negative feedback. I don't expect you to change. This kind of crap is exactly why I'm an Episcopalian. I believe that God loves everybody (even you) and that this sort of thing is a sin against the Holy Spirit. You do realize you are taking God's name in vain right? That's what that commandment was about... saying God told you to say something God didn't actually tell you to say... and why do you have to be ugly in a public way any way? I don't remember Jesus talking this way to anybody but the religious leaders of his day..

Sincerely,

Leslie Terrell


The Editor to Edmond Life and Leisure's email is ray@edmondpaper.com

This is what I sent him:

I had a friend link me to this page... Seriously? Did you really have to publish this?

I do realize they paid you, but don't you think you're going to alienate all the normal christians (myself included) who don't want to be embarrassed by this kind of idiocacy in a public way?

For the record, I'm just making sure you get some negative feedback. I don't expect you to change. This kind of crap is exactly why I don't buy newspapers unless I know there's going to be some really good coupons tucked inside.

Sincerely,

Leslie Terrell.

It must end

I've been considering for about a week now how to do this. National Coming Out day made me think of it. No, I'm not a secret lesbian. I'm quite sadly a not so secret straight woman who is celibate not by conscious choice but by the lack of interesting men who are also interested in me in this area. I've been a straight ally for years. Everybody knows this. At least, anybody who's spent any time with me.

The recent media attention to bullying, specifically anti-gay bullying, has had me thinking. I've specifically been trying to come up with a way to justify how a Christian can justify not wanting to stop their kid from doing that. I've been on both sides of that issue. I started out thinking that homosexuality was a sin. Even as a teenager, however, I recognized harassing someone because they aren't chaste according to your world view is wrong.

Oh yeah, I said it. Harassing someone because they aren't chaste according to your world view is wrong. Yes. This is a chastity issue. (If you're not familiar with the term, chastity refers to morality with respect to sexual relations.) It isn't a subculture issue at war with Christianity issue. It's a chastity issue. Why? A lot of the people in this so called subculture are also Christians. Just because you're trying to kick them out of the church because you don't want to be associated with them does not invalidate their baptisms. Be glad about that, on my worse days I want to invalidate some folks' baptisms myself. It goes both ways.

I want to know what in God's name people hope to accomplish by claiming that telling kids it's wrong to harass their classmates is undermining Christianity. Specifically, I want to know what is wrong with James Dobson. Focus on the Family is apparently at it again.

School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.

"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman said.

Public schools increasingly convey that homosexuality is normal and should be accepted, Cushman said, while opposing viewpoints by conservative Christians are portrayed as bigotry.

Read more: Focus on Family says anti-bullying efforts in schools push gay agenda - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/ci_15928224#ixzz12TYhHV8e

Anti-bullying rhetoric? Are they worried that schools are going to infringe on their right to be really lousy Christians and verbally and socially crucify people who aren't like them? I don't remember reading in the gospels that Jesus wants me to hassle all the non believers, question their manhood, pull their pants down, insinuate that they are barnyard animals, and give them 'endearing' nicknames. I think that must be in the banned Gospel According to St. Bastard if it exists. Something tells me there's a reason that one didn't make the cannon.

"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman said.

Belittle the view point of Christian students and their parents? What about the view points of gay Christian students and their parents? Did they ever consider that? Did they consider the viewpoint of the students themselves? That they are trapped in school for seven hours a day, can't legally leave, and have to be subjected to the ridicule of other students?

Mostly I want to know why it's belittling for a Christian student to have to behave like a Christian and be kind to another kid? Is there something Christ-like about behaving like a little monster and calling your classmate a faggot? Who would Jesus push down the stairs? Do they want their little monsters to beat up the queers to advance the kingdom of God? Eliminate the "queer problem"? Who would Jesus damn? Do they want them to become quite unpleasant adults who threaten their coworkers with slander at every turn? Or to spend their weekends in college murdering young men on the prairie?

I think that's what it comes down to. If you see it and you don't stop it, you help make it happen. If you don't stand up and say no, you help make it happen. If you teach your children that someone else is less than human, you make it happen. If you teach your children that someone is intrinsically damned for who they are attracted to, this is your fault. Because God isn't like that. God saw his creation and called it good. God loves everyone---even you, you twisted up unhappy people who seek to continue the pain of others. God sees us, all of us, everything about us and loves us. All of us. He doesn't love us anyway. He loves us.

Teaching children to hate murders souls. Their souls. Their souls and the souls of the people they torment. You don't have an excuse for this. If you want them to grow up to be decent people, you have to teach them that absolutely no one is an acceptable target for this sort of thing. No one is less than human. No one is less than.

It doesn't matter what you think about their sexuality. It doesn't matter what you think about their religion. It doesn't matter what you think about their size. It doesn't matter what you think about their ethnicity. It doesn't matter. Humanity is made in the image of God. All of us. Not just you. If you hate another human being, you hate a part of God.

So get a grip. This needs to stop. It has to stop. Unless you want to give up being called a Christian. If you want that, you need to remember that every single human being you meet bears the image of Christ. They deserve your respect if you aren't able to give them your love.

The Divine Baseball Bat

I was at work yesterday when I suddenly realized it was the sixth anniversary of the death of Will Norton. Will, I'm sure I've mentioned before, was my first adult friend who had absolutely nothing to do with my parents. Six years ago yesterday he died from complications related to AIDS after having suffered from the disease for 19 years. I decided to tell my coworker Vicki this on a whim and after telling her who Will was to me she asked me a strange question: Have you always been accepting of gay people?

In a word, no. No, I was not accepting of gay people when I was a teenager. I had been raised to believe it was wrong because (always ambiguous) the Bible said so. I remember someone showing me the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to prove it, along with several other random places in scripture that seemed to make their case. I didn't think much of it. The only gay person I knew that I knew was gay was a pot smoking man whore who could barely read. Back then, if you're wondering, smoking pot made you a total dumbass in my book. I didn't think God was ready to wipe out out the plague of homosexuals from the earth or anything. I kind of ranked it in there with other naughty things you weren't supposed to do associated with sex. Which, honestly, kind of fall into the same category as smoking cigarettes and drinking booze in excess for me. (Not something I'm going gouge my eyes out if I see.)

I laughed several weeks ago when I heard my coworkers mocking Chaz Bono and told them that they'd better learn tolerance or God was going to teach it to them. I didn't tell them that I knew this from painful first hand experience. God, I'm fully convinced, has a Louisville Slugger baseball bat with my name on it. The minute I think I know something about what God likes or doesn't like, he takes it out from behind the seat of his pickup truck again and whacks me with it. I think God doesn't like gays? WHACK! I completely do not understand Lesbians? WHACK! I giggle at the idea of my bishop finding out one of his deacons is going to have gender reassignment surgery? WHACK!

The more I think I know about God the more I know I don't know anything. I'm so glad I don't know what I'm talking about. How horrible, boring, and scary would it be if God fit into that tiny ungracious box I tried to fit him in all those years ago?