for the record

{{a comment i wrote originally for a friend, so that she could share it with some of our old acquaintances, our ghosts of church camp past. but i thought i'd post it here as well, just for good measure.}}

I just wanted to write a quick note to say I was saddened by what happened last week in California and Florida, and -- to be fair -- what has been happening throughout this country for the last decade.

Throughout the past month or so, the whole YES ON PROPOSITION 8 campaign in California really amazed me. The movement, funded by the Christian church and other religious groups (especially Mormons), used a media campaign of lies and distortions (i.e. your children will be taught homosexuality in first grade, the judiciary is legislating from the bench, gays are ruining this country) to strike down constitutional marriage equality.

Do you know why the campaign focused on those arguments/lies? Because when it comes right down to it, NO ONE who argues against same-sex marriage equality can give even one bit of support for how allowing same-sex couples to legally marry will de-sanctify or destroy heterosexual marriages in any way. Because they won't.

Because extending equal civil rights to one minority does not take them away from the majority, nor does guaranteeing fundamental rights to a minority ruin the majority's enjoyment of those rights.

No person should be treated differently just because he or she is naturally different from the majority. In fact, throughout history, our courts and government have given special protection to minority groups, because "the majority" is a strong and often dangerous machine. It can enslave an entire race. It can put asian AMERICANS into internment camps. And it can deny rights to a minority that it doesn't understand, simply because it is different.

The church should be first in line to stand up for the minority, to protect the powerless. But today's modern church does just the opposite. Today's church uses lies and generalizations to harness the same power of FEAR that put Asian Americans in concentration camps during WWII, the same FEAR that drives church leaders to preach against equality.

I have faith that, in time, many Christians will understand that Jesus would not have used lies, deceit, and mistranslations of scriptures to support the denial of equal rights to one group of people. That's exactly what we have realized in the last 50 years with regards to anti-miscegenation laws, and now, looking back, we wonder how Americans (Christians especially) could have been so narrow-minded and cruel and ignorant as to deny mixed-race couples from marrying. I look forward to the day when we can look back and realize the same about this anti-same-sex marriage movement.

"Protecting marriage" is protecting nothing but the narrow-minded "truths" that religious and otherwise ignorant Americans prefer to keep telling themselves.

Thanks for reading. I couldn't hold it in any longer, and I needed you all to consider that this "Protect Marriage" cause that many of you support (however strongly you support it) is hurting individuals, hurting families, and driving many, many people away from the church that I love and want to welcome all people into.

This is NOT what Jesus would do, bitches!