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To Those Christians (and anybody else) Opposing Gay Marriage:

The New Testament is well over 1,500 years old. Yet during that time, these are just some of the recent societal developments that have occurred while we had the same Bible:

We no longer burn witches at the stake! We have become much less superstitious than those people who believed Satan was working through people and that we had to torture and burn them for their crimes.

Slavery has been abolished in numerous countries, including our own.

Women have been accorded equal rights, including the right to vote, and that wasn't even a hundred years ago!

Americans descended from darker-skinned nations can now drink from the same water fountain and use the same toilets as those Americans descended from lighter-skinned nations. We even allowed them to attend schools and ride anywhere on busses with those lighter-skinned people! And that was recent enough for ME to have witnessed!

All this amazing progress, and more, has happened while we all had the very same Bible.

So what changed? How come we're not keeping slaves anymore, and burning witches, and why the hell are we giving darker-skinned people and women equal rights? What the heck happened? DId God somehow magically rewrite the Bible each time to allow a major social change? Or did we finally realize our error, our prejudice, our discrimination, our bigotry, our hate?

Christians have often used the Bible to justify their moral discriminations. Gay marriage is no different. It's time to stop using Jesus (who said nothing about homosexuality) as your excuse for refusing civil rights to another group of Americans.

I find it necessary at this point to inform you that I am not gay. It's been so long since I've dated that people might think I am, but if were to ever date again, it would surely be a female. Probably Penelope Cruz, but I digress.

That's just the way I'm made. I'm attracted to women. I'm not interested in romancing a man. Some guys are. It's not sin, it's not their choice, it's the way "God" made them, it's the way they were born, just like some of us are born in different hues, and with different facial features.

The majority must always speak out for things to change for a minority. More heterosexuals need to speak out so that the minority of homosexuals can achieve the same rights we have. Just as white folk had to speak out for black folk so they could enter the University of Alabama and get an education when Governor George Wallace tried to deny them that right.

It will happen. There's always resistance at first, often for a long time. But in the end, I think any kind of love will always trump any kind of hate.

ps.
I know I promised a return to lighter stuff, but I just got a sudden thorn in my paw and had to be my own Androcles.

I think I'm starting to alienate people with my recent gravity of thought. Visits and comments are becoming more rare.

Of course, it doesn't help that I haven't been out there commenting myself. I'll get back out there, really. I've just been way too busy to pay most of my contacts the time they deserve.

See you soon, really. In the meantime, I'm going to put up some portraits and stuff over the next week, some old, some newer.

This is one of them, which you probably already figured out. But did you figure out that this was taken the same day as the stained glass window photo right before this one? Did ya? Huh?

On August 3rd, 1929, a man named Jiddu Krishnamurti met with the people who had been raising him as a messiah for most of his life. He was barely into his 30s, yet this group of people believed him to be a great teacher, and a future shaper of the world. He had been groomed to be their leader, and the leader of many others. I have no doubt they assembled before him on that day, eager to hear what wisdom he might impart.

This is an excerpt of what he told them:

I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. ... This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies."

With that statement, he dissolved the religion they had built around him. As you can imagine, this is a lesson his followers never expected to learn, yet it was the greatest lesson Krishnamurti could give them. The group quickly splintered, never to be the same again. Their "messiah" went on to be a teacher indeed, but more than anything else he asked questions, and rarely gave answers. As to his greatness, that is a matter of opinion. He would find himself unremarkable.

Factions, be they political, religious or both, artificially divide us. As I said in an earlier conversation in the photostream of one of my contacts, "We did not create poetry. Poetry created us."

I'd forgotten that for quite some time, at least emotionally, and surprised myself by saying it, but I wanted to repeat it here mostly for myself. These days it is pretty much the extent of my "religion."

I have lived most of my life inside my head, more than in the world itself. Neither way is easy, but I think we owe it to ourselves to try both, and give each our very best effort. I still seek that poetry, that truth without a path, but I find the journey is enough to make me a better person, without having to know the whole truth.

My brief manifesto is over.

Work was absolutely butt-kicking today, and I'm behind on sleep, so here's Arial again.

I have some concept photos I really want to do, but also some writing I absolutely need to do, so I don't know how soon I'll be doing some new stuff. There's so little time. I think I'll win the lottery this weekend and take it a little easier.