Starting the day off on a...note...
Fred Phelps be gettin' his ass sued. And hopefully not for the first or last time.
It's one thing to decry homosexuality. That puts you in the obsessive books (You have to wonder about people who worry so very much about what guys are doing in the shower).
And to stand outside and protest a funeral because you feel so very strongly anti-gay, well, that's just bastardly (Any remembrance that yours is a religion of love, acceptance, and forgiveness has, by this point, fallen straight out the Volkswagon window and bounced several times on the asphalt of life's interstate on your way to the picket line, so your accountability is largely shot, and no one observing your tirades is really paying you much heed anyway). The "Matthew Shepard has been burning in hell for X years, X months, X days, X hours...etc" counter is really in poor taste as well.
But to stand outside a military funeral, and protest the interrment of a soldier who died in service to his country (for good or ill, this isn't an Iraq tirade) because you believe that the country is doomed in entirety to hell for not ruthlessly persecuting people for the type of person they are destined to love, that falls far from the realm of retardedness and into the realm of evil. You have become that which you decry at this point.
Which is why, without a note of conciet, the caboose of all of my prayers is "Lord, protect me from your followers." It is very hard to be Christian, especially that part about judging not, lest ye be judged. And that part about turning the other cheek. And that part about doing unto others what you would have done unto you. There is immediate gratification in disparraging and insulting, but there is long term benefit and joy in loving someone because of, not in spite of, their faults, and as much as it pains me when others can't see that, I have to remind myself that there's still a great deal that I don't see.
I rambled a lot more on this, but I really can't make it all cohesive. What it boils down to is don't judge, love your fellow man, think before you speak and don't poke badgers with spoons. I don't want to argue about it, I don't want to fight, I don't want to get caught in a cobweb of fundamentalism because I'm just too tired, but I know that when I open my mouth it is the signal for others to open theirs, and there's nothing I can do to stop that.
So anyhoo, more later
It's one thing to decry homosexuality. That puts you in the obsessive books (You have to wonder about people who worry so very much about what guys are doing in the shower).
And to stand outside and protest a funeral because you feel so very strongly anti-gay, well, that's just bastardly (Any remembrance that yours is a religion of love, acceptance, and forgiveness has, by this point, fallen straight out the Volkswagon window and bounced several times on the asphalt of life's interstate on your way to the picket line, so your accountability is largely shot, and no one observing your tirades is really paying you much heed anyway). The "Matthew Shepard has been burning in hell for X years, X months, X days, X hours...etc" counter is really in poor taste as well.
But to stand outside a military funeral, and protest the interrment of a soldier who died in service to his country (for good or ill, this isn't an Iraq tirade) because you believe that the country is doomed in entirety to hell for not ruthlessly persecuting people for the type of person they are destined to love, that falls far from the realm of retardedness and into the realm of evil. You have become that which you decry at this point.
Which is why, without a note of conciet, the caboose of all of my prayers is "Lord, protect me from your followers." It is very hard to be Christian, especially that part about judging not, lest ye be judged. And that part about turning the other cheek. And that part about doing unto others what you would have done unto you. There is immediate gratification in disparraging and insulting, but there is long term benefit and joy in loving someone because of, not in spite of, their faults, and as much as it pains me when others can't see that, I have to remind myself that there's still a great deal that I don't see.
I rambled a lot more on this, but I really can't make it all cohesive. What it boils down to is don't judge, love your fellow man, think before you speak and don't poke badgers with spoons. I don't want to argue about it, I don't want to fight, I don't want to get caught in a cobweb of fundamentalism because I'm just too tired, but I know that when I open my mouth it is the signal for others to open theirs, and there's nothing I can do to stop that.
So anyhoo, more later