Gay Marriage during Holy Week-seriously Supreme Court

Unless you have been living under a rock in the United States this week, you know that the Supreme Court will start hearing arguments about gay marriage.  I think we all know the objection:  it redefines the biblical definition of marriage – one man and one woman.  In an age of divorce, the one man and one woman definition can happen multiple times – see Elizabeth Taylor, Newt Gingrich, etc. etc.

In our Judeo-Christian nation, I find it interesting that opening arguments for gay marriage happen to be the week of Passover and Holy Week for Christians. Really Supreme Court, were there no other times available on the calendar?  

Anyway, it seems that every day there is another politician who “comes out of the closet” so to speak in support of gay marriage.  Since I’m from Kansas City, I’m giving a shout out to Claire McCaskill, D-MO who recently came out!

However, I have to give a face-palm of disapproval to Congressman Huelskamp R-KS on the other side of the state line who came out against gay marriage.

Here is an excerpt of his speech.  It’s short and not so sweet so I thought I would include it.

“In the midst of all the discussion and protest surrounding these arguments, I would encourage the Court to not be distracted from the fundamental issue before them—will the U.S. Supreme Court choose to radically redefine marriage thus overturning the will of the American people as reflected in numerous votes by states, and by a vote of this body and signed into law by President Bill Clinton?

I urge the Supreme Court to uphold the will of the American people, support traditional marriage, and protect the democratic process by allowing the American people to express their will on this issue.”

I didn’t leave much out.  That’s pretty much the whole thing.  I would say two thumbs down on powerful and persuasive.  ”The will of the American people” – sorry Congressman.  As of the latest poll 53% of American people support gay marriage.

Now something that is striking is that so few politicians are coming out publicly against gay marriage at a time when so many Americans are discussing it.  Maybe that is a sign of the times as well.  I don’t doubt many disagree, but they don’t want to do political damage by being too vocal.  Maybe they know times they are a changing.

I can hear the opposition to gay marriage even without the politicians saying anything “but the Bible says homosexuality is wrong.”

My response – you are correct.  The Bible says homosexuality is wrong.

A gasp from people who know me that can’t believe I just conceded a point.

The book I’m currently reading is The History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom.  Now that I’m divorced and not one, I have tons of time to read about the history of one.  It takes the definition of a wife back to Biblical times.  One of the things it points out is that per Biblical requirements and for hundreds of years after if a woman’s husband died it was the obligation of the husband’s brother to marry the wife.  (A shiver just went down the spines of modern-day women.)

Now if we wanted to carry out something like this in modern-day society, people would say we were crazy with a capital Z.  Why?  Because as a society we have evolved, even though this is in the Bible.

To say that something is just, because it is in the Bible is not reason it should be American law.

Equal right to marry who you love may not be your Christian way, but justice is the American way.

I guess we will leave it in the hands of our Supreme Court to decide.  During this holy week, all we can all do is pray-50% of us will be praying for the right outcome.

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Boy Scouts and Scarlett O’Hara – what they have in common

Oh Boy Scouts – you and your homosexual dilemma…

You remind me of my favorite drama queen  Scarlett O’Hara as she collapses on the stairs after Rhett Butler leaves her in the final scene of Gone with the Wind (don’t worry – they are a heterosexual couple)

Poor Scarlett says after she loses the love of her life, Rhett, because he mistakenly believes she loves her childhood sweetheart Ashley (hold it Boy Scouts – this isn’t a lesbian thing.   Ashley is a boy so settle down on the homosexual hatred.), “Oh I can’t think about this now! I’ll go crazy if I do! I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

That pretty much sums up the verdict you gave America today on not revising your stance prohibiting gays from your cherished boy camping love fest. (Sorry!  My description of your group sounded pretty gosh darn gay didn’t it?)

So just like Scarlett your drama continues until you become a poorly made Lifetime movie sequel.  Don’t even get me started on that.

I think I understand where you are coming from.  Doing the right thing can take hundreds of years. You’ve only been doing the wrong thing for a hundred.  Think about how long things like slavery and women’s inequality lasted.  We are talking hundreds and hundreds of years in this country.  You haven’t come close to that time frame yet.  America can’t expect you to change until the timer on wrongness has gone off!  It may be another hundred years until your expected to change even though we all know you’ve been wrong this whole time.

Slavery was wrong for hundreds of years.  It took many people speaking out about it and then a war until that stopped.  All you’ve had are Fox and CNN commentators debating your issue.  That’s a far cry from a freaking war.  I would dig in your heels and demand a war until you decide to change your ways.  Think about it….you have ready-made troops in their brown uniforms. Reminds me of another group of European soldiers in brown uniforms that were intolerant of homosexuals.  Anyway, I’m getting off my point.

Back on point –  what an excellent example you are setting for your young scouts.  What is too difficult to face, just put off for a while.  Excellent teachable moment.  Is there a patch for that?  In the meantime you can continue to do what is wrong by keeping homosexuals out of the scouts while you think about it.  Also look out for Beyonce and Justin Beiber trying to infiltrate the Scouts.  This threat doesn’t come from me, but from Rick Perry.  He said, “to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate.”

Homosexuality is popular culture.  I just love that Texas science.

Ah..well…Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/06/boy-scouts-delay-decision-to-lift-ban-on-gay-members/?test=latestnews#ixzz2KAAxwSZC

URGENT Congress- a must read response to LaPierre’s interview

Dear Congress:

I know you all are on Christmas Break.  I hope you can take a second to read this.  I’m sure you already know that Wayne LaPierre , the NRA’s spokesman, gave a press conference on Friday and appeared on Meet the Press.  Some Congressman and Senators have  issued statements also supporting no new gun control laws that would infringe on the 2nd amendment.  LaPierre asked that we put an armed security guard in all of our nation’s schools.

“If it’s crazy to put more guns in schools, then call me crazy.” LaPierre said.

You’re crazy Mr. LaPierre.  That was easy.

Here’s why.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics in 2009-2010 there were 98,817 schools in the United States.  This year we had Sandy Hook – that is one mass shooting out of 98,817.

Since 1927 there have been 11 school shootings. I am in no way minimizing these tragedies.  I, like any other concerned parent, realize that one tragedy is too many. However, common sense tells me that the odds are that my child will be safe.  Common sense also tells me that restricting the access to assault weapons would have also reduced the number of casualties in these shootings.  It’s not more guns to arm our teachers and added armed  guards to attempt to shoot intruder, it’s less high-powered guns to reduce the number of casualties.

Here is another point that Mr. LaPierre and politicians are leaving out.  The onset of most mental illness in people is 14 years old.  If mental health really needs to be overhauled in this country why have politicians frequently tried to cut school funding for vital programs like school counseling?  In some states school counseling programs have been eliminated altogether.

What do school counselors do?  According to the School Counselors Association,”Secondary school counselors are professional educators with a mental health perspective who understand and respond to the challenges presented by today’s diverse student population.”

The legislative update from the School Counselors Association reads:

The Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Program (ESSCP), the only federal program dedicated to creating and expanding school counseling services in America’s public schools, remains funded for FY12. Although the House of Representatives attempted to eliminate the program, the Senate and House ultimately agreed to fund ESSCP at approximately $52.296 million. The FY12 funding amount is a cut of 0.189 percent from FY11, which is the amount that was cut from all education programs.

I went through the list of each state and who has funded school counseling programs.  You can read the complete list here.

Some interesting findings:

Connecticut
Is school counseling mandated for grades K-8? No
Is school counseling mandated for grades 9-12? No
Is a mandate being considered? No
Certification rule (see p. 111)

Colorado 

Is school counseling mandated for grades K-8? No
Is school counseling mandated for grades 9-12? No
Is a mandate being considered? No
Other: Colorado is a local control state, which means many pre-kindergarten through 12th grade public education decisions (issues of curriculum, personnel, school calendars, graduation requirements, classroom policy, etc.) are made by the 176 school district administrations and their school boards.
Certification rule (see p. 165)

and my own great state of KS

Kansas
Is school counseling mandated for grades K-8? No
Is school counseling mandated for grades 9-12? No
Is a mandate being considered? No
Certification rule

I’m not a journalist, just a concerned parent.  I know that if we really want to do something to improve mental health in our nation, it is early detection and intervention.  Not funding and mandating school counseling is wrong.  There is still a need to ban assault weapons.   Putting armed guards in 98,000 of our nation’s schools costs money.   I would rather us arm every school with a qualified school counselor than a security guard.  

If I remember from the last election cycle, most of you ran on fiscal responsibility and no more “politics as usual”.  Show me you stand by your promise.  Fund programs that work like school counselors instead programs we know don’t work like armed guards in schools. Require that every school in our nation have a qualified school counselor with mental health screening for our youth.  Not only can we help prevent tragedies like shootings, but also other mental health initiatives like suicides and bullying.

Thank you,

Aimee Patton

Parent to a six-year-old and voter

A new statue outrage for Kansas City!

I was minding my own business and driving to work this morning. I was taking a side street in suburban Kansas City – on the Kansas side by the way. When suddenly, I was shocked and startled by what I witnessed! Standing there, among the bland landscapes was a statue. A naked statue of a man. He was lurking in the brush of a split level. Right there, off a main street and only blocks from an elementary school was a statue of a naked man.

Calling Joanne Hughes! Joanne, honey, fire up the minivan and get yourself out there stat! If it caught my attention, imagine the innocent youngsters who could happen upon this naked male statue at any moment. A lemonade stand could suddenly go up only mere feet away from his bulging…well…bulge.

Since you are the queen of all things decent in public spaces based on your uproar over the statue of the bare breasted woman in the Overland Park Arboretum, Joanne, you need to take action quickly! You and the AFA seem to deem yourself the police of appropriateness in our Kansas suburbs so please put a siren on your minivan and get out to defend young eyes.

Now, I could tell after closely examining his package that he was not currently in an “aroused state” like the arboretum statue, but that at any moment his Ken-like anatomy could easily become erect. If he had an actual head, and his head had any sexual thoughts God only knows what could happen. Also, he was standing in the bushes of a landscaped, suburban yard. This could only mean he was depicting a peeping Tom. He was obviously encouraging teens to become peeping Toms. Joanne and the AFA – hurry! Get your petition together-signatures are needed. Youngsters are probably being influenced to become peeping Toms as I write this.

Now the poor homeowners probably just thought this was cool art. Little did they know they were influencing an entire generation of young people to become peeping Toms. Ladies and Gentlemen, watch out your windows tonight. If there are young people lurking in your bushes, we all will know why. The same reason we have a sexting problem in this country. It’s all because of the headless statues. Damn those headless statues. Joanne- I’m waiting on my petition.

OP Statue – the artist is from China, China is known for censorship

The Overland Park Arboretum has a statue that has been creating a stir. The artist is Yu Chang from China.

Now I think there is no better way to show China what a great democracy America is then by promoting free speech and expression. Their communist country can only image a life where they are free to express themselves through art. I’m sure the artist Chang was thrilled to be able to have that great taste of the American pie by making such a powerful statement with art and have the accepting American arms embrace this art with our ideals of freedom of expression and speech. What a powerful message this is about such a great country we are. And to top this all off, the statue is named CHOICE! Amen Chang! America is truly the best country in the world with our glorious freedoms given to us by our Constitution! You have tasted just how wonderful our country is by expressing yourself through art and now displaying your art in our great land. Can we all give our Founding Fathers an “Amen!”

Oh, wait a minute, a group has decided this art is “obscene” and wants it censored. A woman named Joanne has decided it’s her mission to censor this sculpture and gone out to get signatures to have this piece of art removed. Now they want a grand jury to investigate. At issue is the woman has her breasts exposed. The group has declared these breasts to be in “an aroused state”. Never mind she doesn’t have a head (that’s a blog for another time).

Censorship…reminds me of a certain country who has massive human rights violations. They are known for controlling media….they are communist. Hum….can’t think of it right now. Starts with a “C”. Maybe it will come to me. I want to say North Korea, but that’s not it.

Maybe I’m thinking of historical references like Nazi Germany. They were known for art censorship. Maybe I am thinking of the US and some crazy past censorship attempts. We were known for censorship when mail carriers from 1830 until the civil war were forbidden to carry abolishionist pamphlets to the south. http://censorshipinamerica.com/a-brief-history-of-censorship-in-the-u-s-a/ Now we look back on that and think “That’s crazy!”

Joanne and your association, before you start firing up a Grand Jury, stop and think of the irony here. Freedom of expression is one of our most highly celebrated freedoms in America. Freedom of choice (the name of the statue), expression and speech are what make America great. Censorship makes us just like the country where the artist originated from. Exercise your freedoms Joanne. Use your freedom of choice and don’t go see the statue.

Santorum’s twitter intern…you goofed.

Happy Presidents’ Day

Is that what you say?  If yes, then there you go, if no, then I am just acknowledging Presidents’ Day.  I think most people could care less unless you work somewhere that is closed today.  I am self employed so I celebrate every federal holiday.  So, back to my point, Happy Presidents’ Day!

Throughout the day I got the various tweets about Presidents’ Day.  One particular one caught my eye:

“RickSantorum: Today we honor presidents who understand freedom makes our country great.  I understand that.  Unfortunately, Obama doesn’t.”

Do I believe this came from Rick Santorum’s blessed fingers?  No, I am not naive to believe that Rick actually tweeted these words himself.  I am sure there is some young intern at campaign headquarters developing carpel tunnel as we speak typing these little nuggets every hour or so on schedule.  His boss, a late twenty-something, is probably barely looking at these things and did an over the shoulder approval.  Everyone at campaign Rick has been working long hours and the bad news is no one is enjoying campaign relief sex, because we all know that campaign Rick does not believe in sex outside of marriage and even if they do with no birth control there is no room for error so why risk it.  All they have to go on is Starbucks and praying to the Lord above to keep them going.  That’s probably why these things slip through.

Let me explain what’s wrong with this tweet.   Did previous presidents understand that freedom makes this country great?  I would argue that the founding father’s understood more that democracy and representation made this country great.  Freedom wasn’t so high on the list.  I think if there someone who understands and appreciates the concept of freedom it would have to be Obama over Santorum.

Two of our most popular presidents, Washington and Jefferson, owned slaves.  Kind of goes against that whole freedom understanding claim doesn’t it?  They fought hard to create this country and were very much for branches of government and representation, but not so much about every person actually being free.  Then again we get into that fuzzy definition about who exactly is a person and who isn’t in the late 1700′s.

To have a black president and first lady is inspiring, especially ones as smart as the Obama’s.  For Santorum to say that Obama doesn’t  understand freedom when his race was not able to vote until relatively late in history or for that matter wasn’t even counted as a person in some parts of our country until the mid 1800′s is ridiculous.  I think, because of that, I put my faith (something you claim to be very familiar with Santorum) in Obama to uphold.  Obama provides proof of that fight for freedom time and time again most recently with his bold statement that birth control should be something affordable and available to all women.  The ability to make choices about my body and health and not have an obstacle such as money stand in my way is a great example of freedom.  Let’s compare that to Santorum’s example of freedom being that his religion’s definition of what I should be doing with my body should be the law of the land.

If somebody is going to take away a freedom, can we please take away Khloe and Lamar on E!  In the middle of this blog I just turned it on.  Sorry for the brief break on my freedom rant, but Khloe has her bedroom decked out like some sex dungeon and Lamar turns her down, because “he’s had a long week”.  Excuse me?  First of all, I wish I could take my brain out and rinse it off to remove that visual of their sex dungeon bedroom.  Second, what the hell is up with Lamar that he is turning down a sex swing?  Do I sense trouble in paradise?  Hopefully E! will rerun their 2 hour wedding special so I can be reminded of their true love that is sure to last forever.  Khloe, you are worth millions, is it too much to ask for a reasonable color job on your hair?  Maybe Lamar would be a little more in the mood if your hair would decide what color it wants to be.

Ah, I love exercising my freedoms!  Now that I lost most of my male readers to the sex swing paragraph, let me go back to Santorum.  Did I just write a blog that has sex swing and Santorum in the same blog post?  Probably this has never been done.  I will soon feel the power of prayer as many pray for my soul.

Maybe Santorum should spend the rest of this day truly celebrating freedom.  All freedoms; the freedom of religion, the freedom of choice, the freedom of speech, etc.  This is better than exercising his right of judgement.  I get that we have that right, I am exercising that right now, but I am not running for the highest office in the land.  We can celebrate the foundation that our founding fathers set up and then celebrate how much our society has added to their foundation.  I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for what we have added.  Obama was elected, because he was the right person for the job.  I think if there is somebody who understands and appreciates freedom it is him.

Now excuse me while I see if a good nasal rinse is enough to possible reach my brain for that Khloe and Lamar visual.