I wonder where that pet shop is.

Screen cap courtesy of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Geometrees

Will add text later. Sorry.

One Christian Perspective on Gay Marriage

This past weekend, New York state became the 6th in the United States to pass a law allowing gay marriage. Not civil unions, not domestic partnerships, marriage. And amid the friends congratulating New York and celebrating New York and, yes, loving New York, I saw a handful of conservatives. One man on the news decried the fact that our children will be referring to two men as husband and husband. Others of course quoted Leviticus 18:22, got sarcastic about when "we" can complain about others' beliefs being crammed down "our" throats or say that marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman.

And I breathe a heavy sigh.

I'll counter those arguments later. First, I want to point out that these are supposedly Christian people and they are doing more damage to the Cause of Christ than any den of iniquity ever could. It used to be that non-Christians just saw Christians as being "no fun". Remember Billy Joel? "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints"? Well, that's all changed, probably in the last thirty years or so. Non-Christians now see Christians as hateful and mean-spirited, and we only have Christians (or people who call themselves Christian) to blame.

It started with abortion laws and the protests that go with them. People stand on corners with signs that have hideous pictures on them, accusing women who are at the end of their ropes of being murderers and minions of Satan. And now, as gay rights continue to make inroads into the law of the land, they have turned their ire against homosexuals. Signs on street corners and funerals say "God Hates Gays" and "Burn In Hell", and they're being carried by people from "The Church". And it doesn't help to claim that there is one very loud very fringe church out there when the same message -- with less vitriol, but the same underlying message -- comes from so many other churches. Do they really think that yelling at people will change their behavior? Yelling at people fuels resentment; any child will tell you that.

But more importantly, these people like asking, "What would Jesus do?" but really, what would Jesus do? While we don't have any accounts of Jesus and homosexuals in the New Testament, which I think is telling in and of itself, we do have accounts of Jesus confronting other sinners. When Jesus was confronted by a woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) -- or rather, by a mob who had caught a woman in adultery -- he said, "Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone," and then when the mob dispersed, and he asked the woman who condemns her and there was no one, he said, "Nor do I condemn you." He also said to go and sin no more, but that's not the point. The point is that Jesus did not say, "By this they will know you are my disciples, by your hatred of people who don't share your beliefs and religious practices." He said, "By this they will know you are my disciples, by your love for one another." (John 13:35) No one is seeing Christians' love for one another. They're seeing hatred. And do you remember who Jesus hated? Jesus saved his vitriol for the religious leaders of his time who were putting obstacles in the way of sinners who wanted to know God. He called them "blind guides" and "white-washed tombs" (Matthew 23; see also Luke 11). And here we are, 2000 (give or take) years later, with more blind guides and white-washed tombs placing more stumbling blocks between people and the God who loves them.

That's right. God loves them. God loves homosexuals. God loves adulterers. God loves people who cheat on their taxes. He even loves Christians. He may hate some of the things that people do, but "In this, God shows his love for us: that while we were sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) Christians actually believe that -- and many of them became Christians because -- Jesus came into the world and died on a cross to pay the penalty for their sins. But now that they're in, many Christians want to act as spiritual INS agents, and while Jesus is saying, "Give us your tired and your poor," they're saying, "Go away. We don't want you."

This HAS to stop. God loves you, warts and all. He wants you to be in a relationship with him, but our sin is standing in the way. That's right, our sin. Mine too. He provided the way to have that relationship, by putting our sin to death on a cross so that we, by believing in Jesus Christ, can have our sin washed clean and be in that relationship with the Living God.

Then there's the complaint that we're cramming a religious viewpoint down someone's throat. That's just backward. No one is forcing "straight" people to get same-sex marriages or even attend same-sex marriages. In the words of Wanda Sykes, "If you don't like same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex." It's the people who are trying to prohibit same-sex marriage who are forcing their beliefs on other people because they're trying to enforce others' behavior based on what they believe. But this is America --- actually, this is the Internet, which has no country, but I'm writing in America, so deal! ;-) --- we act based on our beliefs in accordance with the laws and the Constitution. And part of that is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." (United States Constitution, Amendment I) So when we see a law that favors a particular religious system only because of those religious beliefs, we get it changed.

And of course the argument that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman is circular at best. English is a thriving, vibrant language. When I was a child, "aint wasn't a word because it wasn't in the dictionary." Now it is. When I was a child, Internet was not in the dictionary either. Besides, who defines marriage as between a man and a woman? Not Merriam-Webster. If you check on-line at merriam-webster.com, the first definition of marriage is, "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law; the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage." So both heterosexual and same-sex marriages are recognized. Of course, Merriam-Webster includes as their third definition, "an intimate or close union " So, I ask you. Is painting the man or the woman?

If you're going to argue that marriage is defined by God, you're back to that same forcing of religious beliefs onto others. But there's another problem. If marriage is defined by God and the union of two men or two women is unnatural, then I've got a laundry list for you.

Getting your nutrition from a pill (store-bought vitamins) is unnatural.

"Speaking" through hand-gestures (sign language) is unnatural. God gave you lips and ears. Are non-deaf people sinning if they communicate through ASL?

Wearing clothing is unnatural. When God created man and woman, they were naked and they felt no shame. It's right there in Genesis. So, go ahead and take off your unnatural clothes before you go parading with your "God Hates..." signs.

I could go on all day, but I won't.

As to the idea that our children will be referring to two men as husband and husband, I have no fear for our children, who will hopefully grow up in a world where equality is valued, where people are treated with respect and their rights are protected regardless of sexual orientation as well as race, creed and color.

But, for those people who are going to insist that people follow the law of God, ... really? You want to go there? Well, first you'd better know what the Law of God says --- at least according to the bible.

The big problem with Leviticus is that if you're going to live according to the law, you're going to have to live according to the whole law. So, what does the whole law say? Well, in part, it says in Leviticus 11:6-10, "The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.

Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to regard as unclean. " But we don't see Christians rallying outside the city diner protesting bacon, crab imperial and hossenfeffer.

The second part of Leviticus 19:19 says, "Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.

Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." But are Christians willing to give up their polyblend? Somehow, I doubt it.

The first half of Leviticus 19:26 says, "Do not eat meat with the blood still in it," so you can forget your nice, thick, juicy steak, too, unless you're going to dry it out first.

(Note: when I include half a verse, it's not because the other half contradicts, it's just because that part would be making a different point.)

Leviticus 19:27 says, "Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard." And yet, so many of the men standing on these protest lines are clean-shaven. Do they not read their bibles? --- well, in many cases, probably not.

And Leviticus 20:10 says, "If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death," but the penalty for adultery in this country isn't death, it's divorce. So why is no one standing outside of divorce court telling the adulterers that God hates them? These are the questions that the non-Christian who knows what the bible says is asking. Because he or she may also know what it says in Leviticus 19:37: "Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the LORD." But Christians have this way of picking and choosing which of the Lord's laws are ... convenient, which ones they can berate people with and which ones they'll be happier if people ignore.

So, now that I've driven away the self-righteous that I need to reach by comparing them to the Pharisees, and I've driven away the sinners that I want to reach by going all-religious on them, let's get to the rest of it.

What Does God Really Say About Homosexuality?

Let's start with the meat of it: Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a man in the same way that you lie with a woman. This is detestable." ... Or does it? Well, Leviticus was written in Hebrew, so no, not really.

What does Leviticus 18:22 say? A year or so ago, I became troubled by that. This argument is hardly new, after all. And the more I flippantly said, "When a man lies with a man, it is nothing like when a man lies with a woman," I started thinking that it was less and less flippant and more and more true. So I did a little research.

Did you know that there's a web site that has the whole bible in it? And that that web site has multiple translations and multiple languages? It's called "biblegateway.com", and one of the languages it has a bible for is Hebrew. Is it the original Hebrew? I don't know, but it was a place to start. According to biblegateway, the Hebrew of Leviticus 18:22 is apparently

וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תֹּועֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא׃ 

I copied these Hebrew letters into the Google search field --- which was not easy, let me tell you; Hebrew is written backwards --- and found a blog written by a Rabbi who was trying to defend the anti-gay stance. What this Rabbi revealed blew me away.

First, to make the above markings a little readable, the phonetics for the above Hebrew are, " Ve'et zachar lo tishkav mishkevei ishah to'evah hiv," which admittedly is little help to those of us who don't speak Hebrew, but it lets us begin our approach. Taking each Hebrew word in turn...

Ve'et (may mean) "and with". I've also seen it translated as “Additionally/in the same way” and "likewise"

zachar (seems to mean) “male-kind”

lo - no or not

tishkav comes from the root “lie down” and is in the second person imperfect, signifying persistent or on-going action.

mishkevei is a noun, “lying down; bedding”; the word’s root is the verb "shkav", just like in tishkav.

ishah - “female-kind” or woman

to'evah - active participle of “to be hated” or "abomination".

hiv - "he" or "it".

So, putting this together, we get "And with / additionally / in the same way / likewise male no shall lie down lying down / bedding female hated / abomination it." Now, if those of us who love grammar can stop cringing, we see one of the problems in translation, that languages with different roots may not use the same sentence structure. And, of course, Hebrew writing didn't use punctuation ... or vowels ... or the present tense of the verb "to be".

So, through centuries of what may amount to homophobic bias, we have been given "You shall not lie with a man in the same way that you lie with a woman," which just isn't supported by the original text. It also doesn't make sense to me because, as I've flippantly said many times, a man doesn't lie down with a man in the same way that he lies with a woman. At least, not if the man and woman ever hope to reproduce.

Instead of just claiming a better translation, I'm going to look to the experts and a little linguistics. The form "zachar" is an indefinite form. In English, that would be expressed as "a man". The form "ishah" is a definite form, "the woman", which, according to the experts, is used to refer to a wife. (We do that today --- or, annoying people do ;-) --- when we refer to "the little woman".) So, looking at the meaning of the original text, we get a little closer with "Likewise male shall not lie bed wife is hated it". Fixing the grammar just a touch can give us a better translation of "Likewise, (you) shall not lie down with a man in (your) wife's bed. It is hated."

This actually makes sense in the context of the entire chapter, which also prohibits incest of various forms, and other sections of Leviticus that prohibit adultery. Many Christians don't realize that some men today will pretend that homosexual sex isn't adultery because it's not "real sex"; I wouldn't be surprised if this was going on in the days of Moses as well. And of course, it makes sense that the Bible would prohibit same-sex adultery. What doesn't make sense is why the Bible would prohibit two males from having sex (under any circumstances) and not prohibit two females. On the other hand, if God were trying to protect the sanctity of the marriage bed, then it makes sense that all of Leviticus 18 is written from a male perspective.

It also makes more sense to me that God would want to protect the marriage bed than that God would want to prohibit love just because it was between two men.

T-shirt Derby - this time, it's Slogans!

It's been a while since I've posted any T-shirt design efforts. (And I needed a place to put some small partials. *g*) This week's derby theme at Woot is Slogan's for Every Day Things (as in, not brand-name-product slogans). After trying and trying to come up with a "thing" that could have a slogan, I was sitting in a waiting room, and for whatever reason, thought of the phrase, "That's attractive". That had me thinking of magnets, and that let me come up with this. If you like it, you can go here and click "I want this" to vote for it.

And if you like it, tell your friends.

 

A Walk In The Park

 Yesterday was probably the first nice day of 2011, temperatures around sixty, bright, blue skies -- jacket weather, to be sure, but spring jacket weather. So I decided to spend some time at the park.
This particular park is largely natural, a mix of woods and glens with a few biking and hiking trails and a couple roads so you can get around. I brought my camera with me so I could take pictures of whatever caught my eye. I was not alone. A lot of other people decided to take advantage of the warmth that had finally arrived, and a few of those had cameras, even if their tastes in pictures might have been more ... traditional than mine.

After walking for what I can only guess was a mile and a half, two miles, I finally got to a picnic grove where I could sit for a while. While I was sitting, I noticed a man out jogging with his dog. This particular man with his dog struck me as odd because the man was running ahead of the dog, and the dog seemed to be trying to catch up. Usually, it's the other way around.

Anyway, some time later, after the man and dog had continued on and I'd finished the soda I'd brought along and a couple pretzel bites -- and a coughing fit when something had gone the wrong way, I had just put everything in my bag and was about to get up when a young woman approached me (probably around 20 years old). She had a pint of ice cream and a plastic spoon in her hand (yes, this matters). She said to me, "I was just wondering, is there some reason you're taking random pictures?" and she asked if it might be for "some project." Now, first, this is a public park. Lots of people go there and take pictures. Second, I can't imagine she was sitting in a car for all that long, watching me "taking random pictures", not with a pint of ice cream in her car, not unless her car is equipped with a freezer. So, since she hadn't bothered to say, "hello, how are you, do you mind if I sit here?" or why she was asking the question, I just said, "no," and left.
It seemed to me that she was being nosy and just a bit rude. Now, if she had said, "I'm a photography student and was wondering why you choose the pictures you choose" or "I'm taking a survey for my sociology class" or some other actual reason why she might want to know why I took the pictures I take, I might have said ... something. Am I wrong?
Anyway, I continued on my walk and as I reached almost the end --- never mind that my feet and legs were both continuing under protest at this point, I heard a faint noise to my right. I turned and saw what I think was a hawk --- could have been a falcon, I suppose. I'm not much of a bird expert --- that had just landed in the field. I first took a couple of pictures of it sitting there, then waited for it to fly off. But it seemed intently interested in the ground directly in front of it. I imagine it was waiting for a mouse or some such to poke it's head up. So, since my legs were extremely tired -- I'm guessing I walked about 3 or 4 miles -- I took a few steps forward... disappointingly quiet steps. I quickly glanced down for a twig I could break to alert the bird, but once I did, it still didn't move. But after a few more minutes, it flew off -- I have no idea why -- and I got the picture at the top of the blog. It perched in a nearby tree, but by then my feet and legs had all had enough and I managed to get back to the car and go home.

On Friday, news broke that Iowa high school wrestler Joe Northup forfeited his match in the first round of the state championships to Cassy Herkelman because he refused to wrestle a girl. And all the women's rights supporters in the country, or at least the ones I know, cried FOUL! FOUL! Sure, the boy's father said that girls shouldn't be engaging in combative and violent sports like wrestling, and if that were it, I would say he was wrong. If a girl wants to be combative and violent ... well, anyone with a sister can imagine how that can happen.

Here's the real problem, though: If a boy wrestles a girl, they will have contact that if they had in any other venue, would have the boy up on charges of indecent assault. Yes, I know: wrestling doesn't count as assault, but what I'm talking about isn't the combat or the violence, just ... touching. The kind of inappropriate touching that has you showing "where the boy touched you" on a doll to a school counselor.

To help illustrate my point, I've gathered a few of the pictures I took at a couple of college wrestling matches last year. (I was too busy this year.) I've obscured the boys' identities as best I could, because I don't want them feeling like I misrepresented them by including them in this post. I absolutely have not asked their opinions on this issue. But I didn't make any effort to obscure the colleges they represented. Not that I asked the colleges their opinions, but it would just get too much. Next I'd have to change all the uniform colors and that's not going to happen --- even though I can do it.

This first picture is fairly innocuous. I'm mostly including it because I liked it.


Do you know that in Ancient Greece, the Olympians used to wrestle (and do all other sports) naked? They apparently did that because a girl tried to compete. Now, just take a moment to imagine if the people in these photos were naked ... then, when you un-thud, imagine that one is a 20-year-old boy and the other is a 20-year-old girl.









After the events in these pictures, in some states that couple would have to get married!

Hands! Hands in new places!





In some states, the girl's father would be haulin' out his shotgun.

And we're reaching...

And we're reaching...


And just where are we reaching...


Success! Ass grab!




And we have crotch-grab!




This is more of a grab through the crotch to get to the ass:


Oh, his hands are just all over the place.


This fellow doesn't even take time out from his crotch grab when he needs to have words with the ref ... not because he's getting any thrill out of it, but because in wrestling you can't surrender your advantage.


Where is your head, mister?!







So, now someone is probably going to ask why it's okay for boys to be touching other boys in those places, and while I hate to fuel the fire of the homophobes, there certainly are gay fans of wrestling and there "could" be gay participants, wrestling really isn't about that. Much as gay men may enjoy the wriggling and the grabbing, we know that wrestling isn't about getting sexual thrills. It's about competition, strategy, skill and physical ability.

And if girls want to wrestle, that's fine. It really is. In fact, I would love it because far too many colleges and universities have eliminated their wrestling programs because of Title IX and because they didn't have women's wrestling. Adding women's wrestling would have been a much better solution (for me). But please, for the sake of school counselors and fathers-with-shotguns everywhere, please keep the boys and girls separate.

By the way, the girl, Cassy Herkelman, who was allowed to compete in the Iowa state high school wrestling championships lost her second-round match. Now, before people start wondering whether she was hoping that all the boys she would have to face would forfeit, she did have to qualify for the meet, as did another girl.

The Bronze-Beta Buffy Rewatch

Much as I'd love to start out with "Announcing the Bronze-Beta Buffy Rewatch..." that's just a touch presumptious on my part. So instead, let's start with a little history. After all, some people reading this blog --- if anyone is reading this blog --- might be saying, "What the h*** is a Bronze-Beta anyway?" (I sincerely doubt anyone reading this blog is saying, "What the h*** is a Buffy?")

So let's begin: In 1992, Twentieth Century Fox released a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Kristie Swanson and Luke Perry. It was cute and entertaining, but not exactly a classic. Then along came 1997, and the WB TV network put Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the air, but this wasn't the movie, this was a TV series, and it was brilliant and funny and clever, and quite possibly what the movie should have been. It was created and directed by Joss Whedon, and written by him and a team of writers. It was still released by Twentieth Century Fox, since they owned the rights, and Fran Rubel Kuzui and Kaz Kuzui also had a stake (*ahem*) in ownership, but they let Joss have control of the show and I thank them for it.

Now, a few months ago, Fran Rubel Kuzui and Kaz Kuzui announced that they were putting out another Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now, I don't know whether it will be a remake of the movie, a remake of the series, a reimagining of either or a continuation of either. I just know that this isn't just an idea: it's apparently in the works. And, yes, I am among those who aren't overly hopeful about the end product.

Which brings us to ShadowQuest. ("What's a ShadowQuest?" you ask? ShadowQuest is one of the regular posters at the Bronze-Beta --- more about that later.) When SQ heard about the movie, he, she or it (sorry, but it should be SQ's decision whether I reveal personal information about SQ on this blog) decided that he, she or it wanted to hold a Buffy Rewatch, where we would watch the original TV series, starting with the premier episode, Welcome to the Hellmouth, and continuing through, one episode a week.

Which brings us to the Bronze:Beta. Now, when the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired, through the last episode of season 5, people would gather on-line at The Bronze, the official posting board for the TV show, originally at the UltimateTV (now Zap2it) web site buffythevampireslayer.com, and then at the Apollo Interactive (which I believe is still Apollo Interactive) web site buffy.com (both since defunct), to post their opinions and comments about the show. Well, a funny thing happened. As time went on, the people who posted there grew into an on-line community. Yeah, I know, everybody knows about online communities now, but this was in the late 1990s. We were one of the first. *g*

When the TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved from the WB network to UPN, the WB, which owned the posting board, decided to discontinue it. UPN made a bit of an attempt to carry on the posting board tradition but weren't quite able to manage it. So, along came two posters (or lurkers, your view may vary and that really doesn't matter) named "Artie" and "Phoenix" who were able to put together the Bronze Beta, which was an extremely good replacement, and a lot of the people from the original Bronze went there. Not all, but a lot. Others went other places. Others had already gone elsewhere for whatever reason that's their reason. Anyway, enough about that. Back to the Rewatch.

ShadowQuest decided that it would be fun to rewatch the TV show and post our comments at the Bronze Beta, like we did when we first found the show, starting with Welcome to the Hellmouth on January 19th, 2011 (generally considered to be Buffy, the character's, birthday) and then continuing every Tuesday (the air date for most Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes), one episode per week.

Yes, yes, other people are doing Buffy Rewatches, which is fine. From what I've seen, most of them are bloggers who are watching and analyzing the show themselves. This one is all about the fans and the community. Rather than one person post their own personal in-depth (or not) analysis of the episodes, at the Bronze Beta, we can all post our thoughts, deep or shallow, short or long, clever or just "OMG I LUV THIS SHOW". Whatever feels right to the person watching.

So, come one, come all. Start Wednesday, January 19th, 2011, by watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 1: Welcome to the Hellmouth, and post your comments at the Bronze Beta. We're there all week. Enjoy the veal.

Then continue Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 by watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 2: The Harvest.

And hopefully you get the idea from there.

Enjoy!

No need to tell them Leather Jacket sent you. ;-)