Plan to Get Out-a Here

*

It’s over 2 weeks since my hernia surgery and I am starting to be able to stand up straight (well up-right) when I walk. I still am not allowed to do any exercise for 6 more weks. Bah, hum bug! I know I won’t be able to wait that long because my arthritis will take over, and I’ll be frozen in some horrible bent position for the rest of my life. Since I plan on living to at least one- hundred-and-five, I’ll be stuck facing dirt for 20 years or more. Instead of that dreadful situation, I’ve devised a 7-point plan for gaining my body back before I lose it. I’ll be out and about in my silver foil within a few weeks. I am not consulting the doctor because he will say that I shouldn’t do anything for the next 6 weeks. I won’t tell Ruth because she will throw a fit. Neither is acceptable.

Isaac’s 7 Point Plan

1. (three weeks post surgery) I begin walking around the inside halls of my apartment complex here at THE BIG NEEDLE. I will do that 2 times per day.


2. (four weeks post surgery) I extend my walks into the rest of the YE OLD NEEDLE complex, and I do that 2 times per day.


3. Also, during the fourth week I begin doing various arm exercises with 5 pound weights. I will be careful. If my abdomen shows any signs of increased pain I will stop immediately.


4. (five weeks post surgery) I am going back to the health club every other day. I will do slow stair climbing, and I will walk in the pool. I will begin to do some stretching. I will continue to do my arm exercises and walking at the STICKY NEEDLE.


5. (six weeks post surgery) I will increase the rigor of my stair climbing and pool walking. I will increase the amount of stretching that I am doing. I will also increase my weights to 10 pounds. Since I will be taking more exercise at the health club, I will decrease the amount of walking I am doing here at THE MANOR.


6. (seven weeks post surgery) I will continue stair climbing, pool walking, weight lifting and stretching. I will begin to do very basic upper abdominal sit-ups. Once again I will decrease the amount of walking I am doing here at THE MANOR.


7. (eight weeks) I will continue with all of the above except that I will begin using the weight machines at the health club so that I can gradually increase the weight I am lifting. I will increase my stretches. I will begin swimming instead of just walking in the pool. I will increase my sit-ups. I will also increase the rigor of my stair climbing.

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We do not need a second Republican Party!

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with many people in the Democratic Party who want to give the party away to the evangelical Republican Party. These folks have been trying to bring “Faith Values” to the party in order to court the Evangelical vote and they have failed. thank God! In a recent article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Dianna S. Wentz, I read the following.

Democratic strategist Bob Beckel opined nearly a year ago, urging Democrats to "let God back into” the party. A new progressive think tank, The Center for American Progress, brought religious study into its agenda early this year at about the same time the Clergy Leadership Network was formed for the purpose of speaking faith values to potential voters for the Democrats. Yet, these efforts (and others) failed to bring new evangelical or fundamental Christian voters into the Kerry column.

*
I must ask, is it possible to speak to Evangelical "faith values" and remain the Democratic Party? We would have to jettison so many values and people we support. First, we would have to give up our inclusiveness; that is do away with all those of various race, religious, ethnic, and spiritual backgrounds. I for one would have to go, because I’m gay, along with the entire LGBT community since our various sexualities offend the Evangelical interpretation of the Bible. Women’s reproductive rights would be out, so any sane democratic woman would have to leave the party as well. Let’s stop talking such rubbish!

The Democratic Party doesn’t need to become a 2nd Evangelical stronghold. The Republican Party has already done and become that. Traditional Republicans should be leaving that party in droves. Instead they are embracing their new prejudiced brothers because of the power they bring with them. For example, exit polls on the November 2nd election showed that 23 percent of self-proclaimed gay men voted for George W. Bush. Shame on them!

It would seem that rather than turn into them; we need to demonstrate our own alternative Christian values. Christ did not say, “Go, hate your fellow man. Go invade the small nations of the world. Go kill Muslim peoples by the tens of thousands.” Instead, he was about love. My personal faith says that God, his son, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, Holy Mother Mary, the almost non-existent Joseph and all the holy family must be miserable as they have watched our country become The Evil Empire in their name.

The five points of the Evangelical’s practice; sola gracia, sola fida, solus Christus, sola scriptura, and soli Deo Gloria, were the key points of disagreement between the reformists including Martin Luther, and the Catholic Church. The points were written by men who felt that their faith should be based in their own practice as opposed to the practice of the church. That was five hundred years ago. Today, the very thing these people were trying to move away from has overtaken their faith. Evangelical churches have become institutionalized and these threaten to take over the institution of Government in the United States of America. We (Christian Democrats) do not need to become more like the Evangelicals. Instead, I propose that we must provide an alternative to these hate based “faith values.” We need to proclaim loudly and clearly our belief in a God of compassion, inclusion, and love. Such an alternative will not change the world tonight, or even tomorrow night. But, it is right, and after many dark nights, we (well, perhaps not I as I am 84) will begin to see the light of our efforts glow on the Eastern horizon.

* Albany County Young Democrats, http://www.albanyyoungdems.com/mission.htm, © 2003, updated Friday, June 13, 2003, viewed Friday, November 26, 2004

*Wentz, Dianna S, “Opinion, Forum: The Democrats Fundamental Problem,” Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Sunday, November 14, 2004, updated Sunday, November 21, 2004, November21, 2004, 11:19 AM EST.


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It still hurts!

If the surgeon had told me that the repair of a hernia would cause this much pain, for such a long time, I might have thought twice about having the surgery. I’m still taking baby steps when I go to the bathroom, or kitchen. If I sneeze, if feels as though my belly will rip out and fly across the room, and if I reach for anything without thinking, it feels as though my belly button will pop out and fall on the floor. Of course some of the problem is because the surgeon repaired both sides. It seems I had an extra hernia that I didn’t know about, and some of this prolonged period of recovery is because of my age. I am told that I will not be back to normal for eight weeks. I guess at some point I’ll start feeling well enough that I will want to go to the health club, so I've been cautioned not to stretch or exercise. I told my surgeon not to worry, “I do not intend to go through this again, so I will do whatever you say.”

The only problem is that my back, knees, and shoulders are all getting stiff and sore because I’m not using them, and I’m afraid that at my age I might lose some mobility and never get it back.

Adam, my grandson was wonderful. He stayed for two days and waited on me hand and foot. He lugged food and dishes back and forth from THE BIG NEEDLE dining room, and even cooked several meals himself. He cleaned the apartment without disturbing things the way Ruth does. If he felt he had too move something, he would ask where I wanted him to put it. He rented Slaughterhouse Five because he knows that’s one of my favorite movies, and books of all time and we watched it Wednesday evening.

We had a very interesting conversations that started with Slaughterhouse Five and rambled to just about everywhere from there.

“Why do you like this story so much Grandpa? I mean, it’s really pretty gruesome in places.”

*

“Vonnegut was writing in a postmodern vein, Adam. And, He was writing that way before the Postmodern existed. He applies Quantum Physics to the world of the living. His protagonist’s idea that time is not a linear thing, but a series of particular points located randomly, and shifting in relation to one another, and his ability to visit any or all those points at will, while not practical for those of us who must live in a linear world, is one that Vonnegut uses to create a sense of fractured time and space. His hero is not linear, and therefore the text of the novel does not always proceed in linear fashion. The first time I read that book back in the 1960’s, I was flabbergasted, and enthralled.”

“You should be a teacher Grandpa. You think in ways that are fascinating.”

“Thanks, Adam, but you’re prejudiced in my favor.”

“I mean it. I’d love to have you come to my class sometime and talk about Vonnegut, science, time, and literature. They could read the book, see the movie, and you could talk to them about it. Not all the students would understand, but it might open doors for quite a few. Heck, you can take off in all kinds of directions from Vonnegut; science and physics, math, art, literature, and music. His work shows how the arts are necessary to a complete and practical understanding of the theory that science proposes.”

I wish that I could spend more time with Adam. I’m sad that it took my surgery to bring us closer together. I am going to have to make it a point to get off my duff, get in the car and go visit him when I have completely recovered from this surgery. I could cook for him for a couple of days.


* “Goodbye Cruel World: Kurt Vonnegut Fade to Black,” Zach Fine, The Online Daily of The Daily of the University of Washington, http://archives.thedaily.washington.edu/1995/120795/pkv.html (1995) Saturday, November 20, 2004: 1134 AM EST.


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God and the Moral High Ground: Part II

Continued from Sunday, November 14, 2004

I make an argument that the Democratic Party, the party of diversity possesses the moral high ground. Additionally, I claim that the Republican Party is owned by the the evangelicals, and that any Republican who believes in the former political and social values of that party must disassociate himself or herself from this neo conservative Republican party dominated by “scapegoating” and by Calvinist religious values based in prejudice against women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples.

*

In Marinucci’s article Leon Panetta is quoted as stating that it is necessary to get the Democratic South and Midwest back from the Republican Party in order to win congressional, senatorial seats, and the presidency for the Democratic Party in some fogeyish orthodox future. It seems that we are to forget the primary reason behind the South‘s conversion to the Republican party during the second half of the Twentieth Century, racial prejudice. However, those turbulent years that saw our schools desegregated by law were also the years that moved the vast majority of Southern Democrats to leave the party. They left the Democratic Party because it was Martin Luther King of course who created and mustered the movement of liberal Democrats, black and white, who spearheaded the fight against Jim Crow and segregation. Quite frankly, standing on moral high ground, I don’t want those folks back, unless they and their offspring are able to be more tolerant and accepting of people who’s skin happens to be a different shade of flesh color. And, yes I chose the word “flesh” for a reason. It is all human flesh, whether it happens to be deep dark mahogany, brown, tan, pink, yellow, or any variation thereof.

As a senior gay man whose family is struggling to accept his sexuality, I oppose the Evangelical idea that God created gays, but hates our sexuality. I see the false morality of “family values” as divisive and destructive of the family unit. There are Evangelical Christian families, Roman Catholic families of many ethnicities, black Christian and Muslim families, Eastern Rite and Orthodox families of many ethnicities, Jewish families of many ethnicities, Muslim families af various races and ethnicities, Budhist families, gay and lesbian families of many ethnicities and faiths. The list is endlist. We, all of us, are God’s children. He created us in various shades of color, ethnicity, sexuality, religious practice, and belief systems because he created an extraordinarily varied universe.

God created us and wrote the Bible, the Koran, and the other great religious books through men because he/she expected variation. God is quite literally all the things and creatures of the universe, all time and space put together as one. He/she has not chosen any one people or person, reborn, or otherwise as the residence and the epitome of his/her raison d’etre for creating/being the universe. Instead, we are all a part of it. There are no "Family Values," but those values that support all families. Any practice that tries to separate us into various camps is itself, against God and mankind. The Republican Right, religious or otherwise has no moral high ground. Instead, they have constructed a false morality that causes and maintains the separation of various faiths, ethnicities, races, sexualities, and the two sexes, into hostile camps. Instead they have created a Postmodern theocracy that has blured the lines between church and state. Instead, they have created and maintaine a neo-conservative view of the world that allows the United States of America, bastion of freedom, to invade foreign nations under the gise of false “liberty,” thus becoming the largest most powerful rogue nation in the world. Instead, our nation is killing men, women and children in Iraq even as I write these words.

No, I don’t want my party, the Democratic Party, to give up its moral high ground because Christian Evangelicals say the world must conform to their evil and divisive version of this nation, and God’s good Earth.

* Aaron M. Bernstein,“Where does the donkey come from?” The Liberal at Large, http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3470/liberal.html, June 1999, Saturday, November 13, 2004, 10:41 AM EST.
* 2 Carla Marinucci, “In postmortem of Kerry bid, Dems seek clues to new life, San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, Sunday, November 7, 2004. Saturday, November 13, 2004, 10:43 AM EST.


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On God and the Moral High Ground

I make an argument that the Democratic Party, the party of diversity possesses the moral high ground. Additionally, I claim that the Republican Party is owned by the the evangelicals, and that any Republican who believes in the former political and social values of that party must disassociate himself or herself from this neo conservative Republican party dominated by "scapegoating" and by Calvinist religious values based in prejudice against women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples.
*

It seems there are those who would have the Democratic Party do a make-over from the Jacksonian Era Jackass to a Postmodern elegant and conservative horse with shorter and smoother hair, bobbed ears, platform shoes, and a bushy (pun intended) hair piece added to its tail. While recovering from my damnable hernia surgery, I read an article on line from the San Francisco Chronicle, “In Postmortem on Kerry Bid, Dems Seek Clues to New Life,” by Carla Marinucci. In Marinucci’s world, a more conservative image will convince some of the more moderate Republicans to vote on our side. Marinucci quotes Leon Panetta “former congressman and white house chief of staff” as saying, and I paraphrase, that we must win back rural and blue collar voters in the Central, Southern, and Western Red states (Red is for Republican these days, not communists). It seems that the jackass to Arabian is former president Bill Clinton’s idea of refurbishing the Democratic Party as well. I can agree that we must do something to reacquire some of those votes. However, I have problems with the notion that we need to become an imitation of the Republican Party to do so. I believe that the liberal Democratic Party has the moral high ground. I believe that this Republican claim to “Moral issues” is a sad and pathetic misunderstanding by millions of Americans as to what morals are about.

I was a Republican until the 1990’s and changed my affiliation when I realized that the evangelicals were taking over the party. I recognized at the time that these religious claims to the moral high ground were and are based in prejudices against people of other ethnicities, races, religious beliefs, women, and gays and lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people. I found and still find the “born again” religious belief system abhorrent because it is divisive. It is founded on the basic tenant, “Unless you believe like me, you are going to hell.” And, that belief system has another principle at its core, that the Bible is a book written by God, and the evangelical interpretation of the good book is the only possible interpretation. Among the corollaries to this belief is the notion that God has human characteristics, that he can be like a parent and punish us when we are wrong. Unfortunately, that belief leads to all sorts of bizarre interpretation of current events. For instance, many evangelicals believe to this day that God punished us on 9/11/01 because of “deviant sexualities.” It is pathetic that such rabid and prejudicial projection of evil from within a faith that professes to be on the moral high ground is tolerated and accepted by millions of its followers much less anyone else. Additionally to define such as “high ground morals” is not only absurd, but also a freightening retreat from reality.

Stay tuned to this station, there’s more to come on this subject during the next week.

* Aaron M. Bernstein,” Where does the donkey come from?” The Liberal at Large, http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3470/liberal.html, June 1999, Saturday, November 13, 2004, 10:41 AM EST.
* 2 Carla Marinucci, “In postmortem of Kerry bid, Dems seek clues to new life, San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate.com, Sunday, November 7, 2004. Saturday, November 13, 2004, 10:43 AM EST.


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”Bleep” Hernia Surgery!

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

E gads, it hurts! I can’ move!

I’m better than I was Wednesday through Thursday. However, IT HURTS! I took myself off the drugs last night because, If I could have been ambulatory, I’d have been walking into walls. I’m allowed to get up and go to the bathroom, and walk around a bit, but believe me; I don’t want to walk around much.

Adam has been here at the Big Needle and he will stay with me until Sunday. He’s been so helpful. I’m lucky to have such a wonderful grandson.

I’ll write more when I can sit up, dear Journal. Right now, I’m standing in front of the computer, and I can’t wait to crawl back into bed.


The surgeon said it would hurt, but…

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

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Surgery Again!

*

I am scheduled to have my nasty hernia fixed this coming Tuesday, and I’m frustrated. Ruth is acting like I’m a crazed fool. Of course, she’s always thought of me as her crazy artist, and more recently, gay dad. Peter and Jim, my straight buddies here at THE BIG NEEDLE both think I’m going to die under the knife, and make no bones about telling me I will. Tillie Herr, my next-door neighbor here at Prickly Needle Funny Farm won’t even talk to me because, as she says, “He’s already dead.” She’s “P. O’d” at me anyway because I’m gay.

“The Bible says your kind will burn in hell,” she told me when I first came out to her 4 years ago. I couldn’t help myself, and asked her; “In what chapter, and verse does it specifically say that?” Of course, there isn’t one. So, there’s no point going through all the verses she quoted that have nothing to do with being gay, including the story of lot, since that is about hospitality, not gay angels. They didn’t even have a word for it then. It was a variety of human sexual behavior, not a type of person.

Anyway, my favorite grandson, Adam, he’s the teacher, called me in a tizzy, and said; “Please don’t have surgery, Grandpa. Not at your age.”

“Adam,” I said, “I am still active and plan on staying that way. The hernia is a limitation that could kill me should it become strangulated. “You wouldn’t want me to have emergency surgery that would be far more dangerous than this planned minor surgery would you?”

“No, Sir,” he said.

“Good. That’s settled then.” He decided to take two personal days next week in order to come to Lancaster to stay with me after my surgery. I was so pleased, that I didn’t argue. “Thank you so much, Adam. You are the best grandson in the world,” I said.

The surgeon proposes to keep me in the hospital for one day. They don’t do that with younger people, but he wants to make sure that I get through the first twenty-four hours post surgery without any complications. He also said that it was necessary for me to have someone staying with me for at least two days, so I’m extremely happy that Adam is coming to Lancaster. Of course, Ruth raised “bleep!”

“Daddy! How could you let Adam do that? It’s such an inconvenience for him. I’m right here in Lancaster. Call him back and tell him that he doesn’t need to take off from work. I can stay with you.”

However, I certainly don’t want Ruth staying with me for two days. She will use that as an emotional club to beat me with for the rest of this year, and at least half of 2005. She will clean the apartment, and move everything around. She will throw things out, like my drawings of Scott Merritt. She threw those away last year. She will fuss and fume about everything. No way!

In any event, I guess I’m as ready as I can be for this surgery, though I must admit, I’m a bit frightened now that so many people have predicted my eminent demise.


* ‘Areas of Clinical Expertise Pt 2,” University of Southern Califonia, Department of Surgery Web Site, “http://www.surgery.usc.edu/divisions/nontrauma/expertise2.html#Emergency%20and%20Diagnostic%20Laparoscopy,” Sunday, November 7, 2004, AM EST.



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Study Makes Me Want to Spit Nails!

*

I read this article, “The Election’s Over, Are You Still Losing It?” this morning in disbelief. The author, Damien Cave suggests that we losers, that is “democrats” should make nice, crawl back into the woodwork, and go away. Mr. Damien and the psychologists he consorts with believe that we run the risk of having heart attacks should we stay angry. One of his suggestions, do something constructive, like “write your congressman or senator.” Well, my senator is Rick Santorum. When has he ever considered an opinion 1 millimeter to the left of Fascist as anything less than dirt? Consider the following Santorum statement.

It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you -- this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family.

*

Is that not frightening? How is it possible that this man who would destroy basic freedoms for every member of our society because of his ideological evangelical definition of “family” was elected to public office? I am horrified that anyone, including an evangelical would allow his or her faith to interrupt basic “Bill of Rights” human freedoms. I am worried. No, I am filled with fear that our nation is on the road to becoming a Christian Fascist state.

So, I have news for Damien. Sorry Bud, but I for one don’t plan on shelving my anger, and I will not do what I did after the shameful non-election of 2000, that is crawl back into the woodwork. This president and these 52 million American voters frighten me. I am a gay Christian senior man in danger of becoming a second-class citizen because Mr. Bush stated the day after the election that he will make a move once again to initiate the process that will make the antigay marriage amendment law. For his second try Mr. Bush has more Republican congressmen and senators to work with. In short, the government is now a conservative, evangelical juggernaut, and I will fight tooth and nail to keep the evangelicals and this president from making our country the land of the not-so-free unless you believe like me. If we have to return to the tactics of the 1960’s with street demonstrations and riots, so be it!

There, how’s that for constructive anger channeling?

*Rebecca Wells, “Smilies,” Gumbo Ya-Ya, http://www.ya-ya.com/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=faq, © 2004, Sunday, November 7, 2004, 10:41 AM EST.

*Cave, Damien, “The Election’s Over, Are You Still Losing It?” New York Times in AOL News, http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/elections/article.adp?id=20041107062909990002&cid=842, updated November 7, 2004, 9:38 AM EST. Sunday, November 7, 2004, 10:04 AM EST.

* AP Breaking news, “Senator Rick Santorum’s comments on homosexuality in the AP interview,” in SFGate.com, “http://www.sfgate.com/,” Tuesday, April 22, 2003, Sunday, November 7, 2003, 11:07 AM EST.


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Shame on you America!

*

Evangelicals have won!

Sola fide (faith alone) lives.

Unfortunately for the other 48 percent of us, and the rest of the world, Sola fide in the life of the Evangelical implies that God saves each and everyone based on his or her faith alone.

An Evangelical is not expected to do good deeds to be saved.

Don’t expect compassion from an Evangelical. Instead, it is the faith of hate.

Need proof?
Who reelcted George W. Bush?
Look at President Bush’s war in Iraq.

Over 98,000 Iraqi civilians killed. More than half of these are women and children!

It is a travesty!

Bush up. World down.

Shame on you America!

Do you care? If you are a liberal Christian, or you have any other spiritual belief / position, and are concerned about the war in Iraq, go to Traprock Peace Center.


* Herold, W. Mark, “When Precision’ Bombing Really Isn’t: The Evil, the Grotesque and the Official Lies,” in Traprock Peace Center , “http://traprockpeace.org/index.html,” Wednesday, November 3, 2004, 8:56 AM EST.



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I Had a Bad Dream Last Night

I saw a young gay man beaten to death, and the men doing it claimed they were Christian.

I had a Nightmare Last Night

George W. Bush was reelected President of the United States!

Oh, it wasn’t a Nightmare!

The Proposed State Amendments to the Constitution Banning Same-sex Marriage Are a Grave Threat to The Freedom of All Americans

*
I looked everywhere for an image that seemed appropriate to this entry. Most images were totally off the mark, and many were mean, vitriolic, and frightening. This one seemed best. It is from the Massachusetts Bar Association Web Page.

As a direct result of Massachusetts granting the right of marriage to lesbians and gays, our country is about to witness the greatest popular vote for bigotry in its history (about 1/5th of the total voting population). Conservative religious groups such as The Family Research Council are leading the fight to prevent the destruction, as they see it, of the American family.

I can't help but counter such foolishness with a brief argument. First, to think gays and lesbians have so much power is absurd. In reality, the state-by-state fight for amendments against lesbian and gay marriage is nothing more than a move to limit the rights of a class of American citizen, and it demonstrates exactly the lack of power gays and lesbians have in this country. Second, I would make the observation that 57% of all heterosexual marriages in the USA end in divorce. It appears to me that an extension of the right to marry to persons of the same sex might actually reverse the trend that heterosexuals seem hell bent on maintaining, that is the destruction of the American family.

Specifically, Missouri and Louisiana have already voted for amendments banning same sex marriage though the state court struck down the Louisiana amendment. In Mississippi, Montana, and Oregon, the proposed amendments are against gay marriage, but in 6 other states, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah, the bans would also be against civil unions. Of course such mean spirited amendments would also prevent unmarried straight couples from obtaining the benefits that gay couples never have had. These rights include but are not limited to hospital visitation, the right to adopt children, the right to adopt ones deceased partner’s children, the right to preserve one’s savings from taxation at the death of a partner, domestic partner benefits offered by employers such as health insurance, and extension of health and retirement benefits to the partner in the case of death.

Oregon is the most closely contended state, and the battle there has involved conservative accusations that the public schools would teach tolerance of same sex marriage if the amendment does not pass. Both Catholic and Mormon churches have come out in support of the amendments in Georgia and Utah, and both have contributed extensively to organizations promoting the amendments. Lesbian and Gay organizations such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force are concentrating funding in key states such as Oregon. It appears, however, that most if not all of the proposed amendments will pass. An Associated Press article, “11 States to Vote on Same-Sex Marriage,” 10/30/04, appearing in AOL News stated the following.

Recent polls showed support for the amendments at 76 percent in Oklahoma and Kentucky, 65 percent in Arkansas, 60 percent or more in Michigan, 59 percent in Montana, 57 percent in Ohio.

Unfortunately, it seems that a fearful American citizenry is once again, resorting to prejudice in order to prevent the intent of the founding fathers of our great nation from being developed to its fullest potential. In the past the constitution has been used unfortunately to limit the rights of our citizenry. In the case of slavery, Article I, section 2, and Article I, section 9 state the following.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

And, Article IV, Section 2…

No person held to Service or Labor in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labor, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labor may be due.

There is more, but this is sufficient for my purpose here.

More importantly, the constitution has been used to extend the rights of citizens. For instance, the XIX Amendment extended suffrage to women in 1920. Amendment XIV is specific as to the rights retained by the people and the power of the state to deny those rights.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Thus, the constitution of the United States of America as it stands specifically prohibits such malevolent - I know not what else to call them - amendments as those proposed and existing within the individual states. These bits and pieces of the constitution also reveal its malleability. It is not a document carved in stone, but a document that can be annealed, hammered, and reshaped to reflect the desires of the citizenry of the nation. It is possible for powerful malevolent forces to be brought to bear, whether in the name of a political organization, or, Evangelical Christianity that will alter the constitution to reflect those forces. Ultimately one would hope that the courts would strike these misplaced and prejudicial amendments.

However, the reelection of President Bush to a second term in office will lead directly to a court incapable of removing them. Why? Because the president has stated in his double-speak Texan Carl Rovian patter that he will replace retiring court justices with fundamentalist conservative Christian justices. If that happens, all bets are off, and the United States of America will have given up any claim to being a true democratic nation. Not only will we have created a second class citizenry through constitutional law in the various states, but, simultaneously, the separation of church and state, a major tenant of our constitution, will have been totally violated through the creation of a Federal Christian Court. Such a court will dominate our for thirty years, and we will see once again an amendment proposed to the Federal Constitution limiting marriage to heterosexual persons.

To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, as long as one man is a second-class citizen, so all men are second-class citizens!




Sources

“Findlaw: Us Constitutional Amendments,” FindLaw.for legal professions, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendments.html, Tomson Findlaw, copyright © 1994-2004, Monday 9:30 AM EST.

“11 States to Vote on Same-Sex Marriage,” Associated Press, 10/30/04, in AOL News, 10/31/04, updated 2:47 PM. EST, visited 10:38 AM. EST, October 31, 2004.

Walton, Chris, Philocrites, “http://www.philocrites.com,” Monday, November 1, 2004, 11:41 AM EST.



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