Never fear fellow aliens, despite my hectic work schedule, some exciting developments are in store.
In addition to the 2012 Survival Kit Series, the time has come for me to use my voice in other ways and add a new dimension to this whole Alien In The Caribbean thing. Stay tuned.
Part 2 of Masculine Feminine Imbalance in the 2012 Survival Kit Series will be up soon but as you know it's currently Gay Pride Month and we are already more than half-way into the month, so I must post something.
I decided this around to post something a little different and I hope more satisfying for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, questioning and straight but not narrow people who read my blog or chance upon it. Enjoy!
One night, on a rain slicked, winding road, a major public figure of a man lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a concrete barrier, dying instantly on impact.
The man was a virulently anti-gay Christian Conservative.
Suddenly he is floating amongst puffy white clouds up to the throne of God for judgment. As if the perfect golden faced cherubs and the celestial splendor was not enough, when he gazed upon the face of the Alpha and Omega, it was if he saw in those stormy Divine irises his entire life play out again before his eyes.
“Oh no, I think I died,” he finally realizes and despite the initial sadness, he could no nothing but marvel at his current position.
Finally, after moment of assessment, God thunders,
“Did you accept my Son as your Lord and Savior and obey his commandments?”
“Yes! Yes! I most certainly did!” the publically upstanding Christian responds with a self-satisfied smile, despite his overwhelming awe.
God leans in, “Are you sure about that?”
“Oh Yes Sir! I am 110% sure! I remember the day I was moved by the spirit and accepted Christ! I got baptized just weeks later after studying your Holy Word! Oh yes! Well…sometimes I might slip up but I put my sins on the blood of the Lamb and prayed for forgiveness! I fought against all immorality and obscenity whenever I could! I battled with your enemy Satan in the media and pop culture! I did my best to protect your Christian families My Lord.”
“Did you obey my Son’s commandment? “
“Er…which one?”
“The most important one!” God reiterates getting a little impatient, “The one that fulfills EVERYTHING! The sum of it all! The perfect distillation of EVERYTHING!”
“Er…remind me again please M’Lord?”
“Love The Lord God with your whole heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself!” God recites.
The Conservative Christian lights up,
“Ahh that one! Yes! Yes! I obeyed that! I am pretty sure I did!”
“So you loved ALL your neighbors?” God probes, stroking his white beard.
“Oh yes God!”
“Even those whom you considered different from you? Even those you considered to be your enemies? Because my Son made it very clear he meant your enemies too!”
The Conservative Christian begins to look a little unsure and nervously shuffles his feet and mumbles,
“I guess,”
“So you didn’t deliberately try to spread things that were defaming, dishonest or unnecessarily hurtful about anyone with whom you found objectionable? You didn’t try to make their lives miserable and foster hatred against them? You did not try to deny them housing, employment, insurance and equal protection before your law? You wouldn’t for example try to pressure a company to deny them and their loved ones pension or support laws that did not allow them from visiting their loved ones in hospital? Or support experimental psychological programs that result in severe emotional damage and even suicide. That is not, ‘Loving your neighbor as yourself,’ right?”
Researchers from Columbia University surveyed 31,852 Oregon high school juniors, asking them about their sexual orientation and history of suicide attempts. They also looked at whether or not schools have gay-straight alliance groups and anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies. In terms of hard numbers, 25 percent of homosexual students tried -- at least once -- to commit suicide in negative school environments. That number dipped to 20 percent in more positive school environments. By the way, only 4 percent of straight kids try to kill themselves, regardless of their surroundings.
“Wait! Wait just a second My Most Gracious Heavenly Father! Didn’t you make it absolutely clear you consider homosexuality a sin?”
“Ah! So you know exactly to whom I am referring to don’t you? Did I make it absolutely clear that homosexual orientation and loving same-sex relationships are a sin? No I did not.”
“But Heavenly Lord, the city of Sodom!”
“Yes, in that story I believe I made it absolutely clear I hated gang rape, xenophobia and inhospitality. What those men did had nothing to do with sexual orientation or love,”
“Leviticus-”
“Yes, what about it? You certainly don’t follow all of its commands do you? If you want to be such a stickler about it, I made it clear I hated anal sex for men in that time, Later on, I frowned upon temple prostitution and pagan orgies, lust and men who solicit young boys,” God answers with a chuckle, “I am actually ambivalent about the whole orientation thing and as for love, genuine love well I AM LOVE. Wherever there is love, I am most certainly there.”
The Christian Conservative’s heart begins to pound hard.
“But it says right there in the bible….male and female you created them! Adam and Eve! Two men cannot conceive children!”
“Of course two men cannot have children with each other! Neither can two women or infertile couples, what does this have to do with mistreating your fellowman?”
“But you gave us the command to multiply and fill the earth! Reprodution is a Divine mandate and the only Divinely sanctioned reason for sex!” the Christian Conservative insists, forgetting to be afraid in his desperation to prove his case.
“What does it mean to fill the earth dear child? It means to have as many offspring as can be healthily supported by the natural resources available. Clearly, you humans have long overshot that goal and are ruining one of my favorite planets! And who told you that this command means reproduction is the only Divinely sanctioned reason for sex? If it was, why on earth did I create a clitoris and so many ways to enjoy pleasure? Didn’t I also create intersex, hermaphrodites and people with completely different psychological gender to their anatomical one? Didn’t I say after I made everything, ‘It is GOOD!’”
“But! But!”
“So you mean you have enough faith to accept that Adam and Eve were able to have the genetic raw material from just two chromosomes to produce in such a short space of time, seven billion people with so many different races, so many different kinds of talents, so many different kinds of intelligences, so many different kinds of personalities but yet everyone must also have the exact same gender identity and fall in love and have relationships the exact same way?”
For a while, there is nothing but the gentle, continuous aria of the cherubs. Finally God breaks the despairing contemplation of his child and asks,
“Tell me, how much of your mistreatment of gay people was because of you actually felt zealous about pleasing me and following the bible in every respect and how much of it was because gays and lesbians just made you feel icky, uncomfortable, unsure about your masculinity and you disliked them for it?”
Ominous thunder rolled in the background.
Guilt begins to nag the Christian and knows he cannot respond without incriminating himself so instead he asks,
“Are you saying my righteousness and loyalty to your Holy Word displease you my Lord?”
God chuckles,
“First of all my child, you are not righteous, no man really is and the few who make a good attempt at it never consider themselves righteous. They are in fact overly humble and self-depreciating and I usually have to continue remind them just how deserving they are of my love! Second, you only seem to be loyal to the bible when it conforms to your existing prejudices and comforts. You use what is convenient and do not follow the rest, yet judge others with it, claiming it to be absolute and irrefutable in its entirety."
"Oh no Lord! I do not think that is true!"
"Really? What about the many things on which I or my Son give far clearer instructions yet you did not choose make these things your crusade,”
“What things My Lord? I know I spent almost every waking moment in your service!” the Christian Conservative insists, with fists clenched.
Where is the Christian outrage for gluttony in our society?
“Did you battle against gluttony? While children starve, did you protest those who waste food in those disgusting eating contests, all you can eat buffets and homes where families were gorging themselves for Thanksgiving? Did you quote Proverbs 23:21, Ecclesiastes 10:18, Romans 13:13, Philippians 3:19 and 1 Peter 4:3? Did you seek to discourage and punish obese overeaters through discrimination? Did you tell those suffering from heart disease and diabetes because of overeating that it is God’s punishment for their sins? Did you forbid fat overeaters from becoming priests, pastors, Reverends, government officials or seek to remove children from fat parents who were setting a bad example?”
“Er…no.”
“Did you seek to shut down gossip magazines and television programs my child?”
“What?”
“GOSSIP! I happen to HATE it! My Son’s friend Peter listed gossipers and busybodies among the same group as murderers and thieves in 1 Peter 4:15 and I condemn it in Proverbs 11:13, James 4:11, 1 Timothy 3:11 and 5:13 and 14.”
“Er…no, I didn’t think it was that dangerous to society,”
Where is the Christian outrage for words that isolate, defame, mislead, instill terror and apathy?
God thunders with derisive laughter.
“Not that dangerous!!! How do you think falsehoods and dangerous ideas get spread? Gossip is responsible for irreparably ruining lives of innocent people. It is a powerful destroyer of love, empathy and compassion. It fosters an environment of pre-judgment and fear which makes people morally apathetic because they are more afraid of what people say about them than doing the right thing. THAT you brush off and spend all your time on which peg others are fitting into which hole? What about GREED?”
The Christian swallowed and cold sweat began to run down his back.
“The Enron scandal, the housing collapse, the layoffs of thousands of hardworking people just so greedy corporations can get a stock increase of .001%, unfair financial practices, fleecing of honest citizens and unbridled consumerism for things we really do not need, unsafe and dangerous products being KNOWINGLY sold to families just to make a profit, materialistic tele-evangelism, the constant pursuit of wealth, the millions of Americans in credit card debt because they cannot be content with the material possessions they have and the shameless flaunting of wealth while others go hungry you know, Matthew 19:23-24, Luke 16:14, 1John 3:17.” God says with increasing disgust.
“G…God, I see where you are going with this but…but-
“But my child where was your moral outrage? Where were the Christian sponsored therapy programs to try and rehabilitate greedy people into contented people? Unlike sexual orientation, greed is at least you can change.”
“I am stumped God. I just tried to follow your word and I really believed your word to be perfect-
“It IS perfect! But who says man’s understanding and application of it is perfect? It has certainly never been and they can study it their entire lives, it will continue to demand constant growth in comprehension,” God explained with a little more compassion in his tone, “Didn’t I say all men shall keep the Sabbath or risk death?”
“Yes my Lord,”
“Yet didn’t my Son and his band of friends pick grain on the Sabbath? Didn’t he heal on the Sabbath? Didn’t he say that if a sheep fell into a pit on the Sabbath, the humane thing to do is rescue it? Didn’t he do EVERYTHING to show that LOVE and COMPASSION trumps blind, hypocritical, bureaucratic obedience, especially for reasons of self-righteousness?”
“Oh oh,” the Christian mumbles and feels his stomach sink.
“What good is anything I say to you humans if you use it as a tool of punishment and hardship and an excuse to be cruel or lazy about using your common sense? When I say, ‘Love me with your whole mind,’ I do mean apply ALL of your intelligence to your spiritual path. When I say ‘Love me with your whole heart’ I mean that you let love and compassion guide you above everything else. THAT is why it is the GREATEST COMMANDMENT. Perhaps if you spent more time on that instead of using my words to control other people, you wouldn’t be such a…Pharisee!”
“I am so sorry Lord!”
“Even if you were right and indeed Ellen Degenerous, Neil Patrick Harris, Elton John and Lady Gaga are evildoers do you think I am so incapable that I need puny little you to exact vengeance on my behalf? It is not your place!”
“I see that now my Lord. Looking upon your awesome power, I see it was all rather trivial…all of it,”
God sighs wearily and takes a sip from his golden cup of milk and honey.
“I really thought my Son would have been able to free you humans of this tendency and he took the lesson all the way….never was one to do things half-assed that boy. So you ACTUALLY thought I would be happy that you endorsed organizations that made hundreds of young people kill themselves out of self-hatred? Me? The person who forgave the people who murdered my Son? You thought that I would revel in depriving a gay officer and his life partner his retirement money or feel vindicated about people dying of AIDS? Really?”
In February 2007, Janice Langbehn her partner of eighteen (18) years Lisa Pond, and their 3 children traveled to Florida for a Family Cruise. But before the ship left port, Lisa collapsed and had to be rushed to a hospital. The hospital refused to take vital medical information about Lisa's medical history from Janice, including serious drug interaction information. They would not budge even after a copy of Power of Attorney had been faxed to the hospital. Janice and the children were not given any information about Lisa, and were denied visitation even after the doctor had indicated that there was no medical reason Lisa could not have visitors. When Lisa was finally moved from the ER to a non-trauma room in the hospital, Janice was not notified. Finally Janice was allowed five (5) minutes just before her partner passed away. Janice was told by a social worker that she was in an anti-gay state and city, and she and the adopted children would not be acknowledged as family. Later, Dade County Examiner and the State of Florida both denied Janice a death certificate, which she needed for life insurance and social security benefits for the children.
So are families really being protected by anti-gay laws championed by anti-gay Conservative Christians? Or just the families certain people deem more worthy for reasons based entirely on religious belief? How does treating gay and lesbian families humanely negatively affect your family?
The Christian begins to cry,
“Please Lord! Please don’t send me to hell!”
God makes a soothing noise in his throat and leans forward.
“Ah that! You think I torment people for all eternity too! Tell me, if your child screamed in a fit of rebellion, frustration and anger, ‘Daddy I HATE you!” even after all the sacrifices you made for him, would you take his hand and burn it off on your kitchen stove?”
“Of course not Lord! That would be…barbaric!”
“Then what made you think I would do such a thing…and for eternity too! With no chance ever of change or redemption! Do you know how many Universal Laws I would have to contravene to stop an eternal, sentient being with free will from learning, changing, growing and making different choices that result in different outcomes just so they could be in a state of punishment forever? And for what purpose? It’s not bringing me any glory, joy or vindication that’s for sure. You seem to forget…I am Almighty. Trust you scared little things who came up with things like Auschwitz to come up with a concept such as hell. Oh no. No hell for you. I will show you just how merciful I am,”
With that, God snaps his fingers and POOF, the Christian Conservative disappears.
Nine months later, in a little village, a baby boy is born to doting parents. As he begins to grow up, they notice he is a sweet and extremely sensitive and creative child. They do not understand where he learned it from, but he likes getting into his mother’s and sister’s things. No matter how much his father tries to toughen him up, he is not like other boys who like to play rough and dirty in their little neighbourhood in Tehran, Iran.
Happy Gay Pride! Whether for yourself, friend, son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, respected role model, colleague, favorite artist, let love conquer all!
