Those crazy liberals…

found on facebook

*steps on my soapbox*

My friend posted this on Facebook today, and per the usual, his friends went nuts about the liberal agenda, hating religion, blah blah blah.

Everybody gets SO defensive when they see stuff “lumping” the normal religious folks with the religious whackjobs. And, of course, it’s always the liberals who do this.

I’m not going to claim that I’m a biblical scholar, but I did read it once, cover to cover, and I found it to be a fascinating work of fiction. Over the years, I’ve classified myself as Ukrainian Catholic, regular Catholic, Pagan, Buddhist, Agnostic and Atheist. Currently, I’m a universitarian. As in, I believe the universe has a plan for us and that’s just how it is. (So I guess I’m kinda agnostic. Again.)

All that to say: I get that not ALL religious people hate gays and go out picketing that “God Hates Fags”. BUT… the picture raises a very valid point that I don’t really believes has much to do with religion (ignoring the obvious fact that they brought God into the conversation.)

I don’t understand how a child growing up in a loving home can be “wrong”. Does it matter if the parents are same sex? I grew up in a “normal” family with a mother who beat me and made my life so miserable that my father and I had to move out. When they started the divorce process, my mother fought for custody of me, and the judge sided with her in the beginning because a “girl needs to be with her mother”. I told the judge he was fucking insane if he thought I was going to live with that bitch. I’d run away and go live with my father, or fight to be emancipated. (I was 16, turning 17 at the time. Old enough to know what was in my best interests. Yes, those were my exact words.) I was thrown out of the proceedings, and ultimately, he decided that I’d be better off with my father. Well, duh.

Had my father been gay, with a loving, sober, partner, I would have had a much better life. There’s no doubt in my mind. I don’t care who loves you. Or who takes care of you. And in the long run, it shouldn’t matter. Gay parents don’t raise rapists, murderers, etc. any more than straight parents do.

So… I don’t get how people can teach a child how to hate so viciously and think that’s OK. I get that it’s their belief system, but there’s no place for that level of hated, whether or not it comes from God. I mean, what happened to do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Or even the Wiccan idea that whatever you put out there comes back to you, three times as powerful? There’s got to be some bad karma coming their way… there has to be. The universe needs to balance out the crazy.

Long story short—I don’t feel that religion needs to have a place in this conversation. It boils down to two loving parents taking care of a child vs. parents teaching their children how to spew such nonsensical hate.

That’s the conversation we need to have. Table the other shit. It dilutes the message.