Barack Obama, Proposition 8, Shameless Ranting and My Failure to Receive God's Memos

Okay, so apparently the students have gotten to me so badly that I forgot to mention the two major events of last week. Barack Obama is the president elect of the United States of America! His landslide victory made me feel sorry for John McCain and I still think that the race would have been closer if McCain hadn’t selected Sarah Palin as his running mate, but that’s just my opinion.

The other major event that happened last week was the passage of Proposition 8 in California. I expected it to pass because of what I was hearing, but I was still stunned when it did pass. Before it passed, I joked with a friend that I looked to California for my liberal guidance and I didn’t know what I would do if the state passed a ban on gay marriage. I still don’t understand how a decision like that can be put up to popular vote.

Now I need to be politically incorrect. Everyone is saying that the religious vote pushed it over. Apparently traditional marriage must be protected. I’d like to take a moment and play devil’s advocate on this one. I think traditional marriage should be protected. I think eloping should be outlawed and no one should be allowed to have a quickie marriage in Las Vegas because marriage is a serious institution which should not be entered in to lightly. I think people should only be allowed to get divorced if there is abuse involved because divorcing someone due to the fact that you don’t like them anymore is not a good enough reason. Oh and while we’re at it, I think adultery should be considered a serious crime because it is an act against the sanctity of marriage and a violation of the traditional marriage.

On a less facetious note, I think the overly religious people who poured their money in to trying to get the ban passed should take a look at their own congregations before they start casting stones at others. How many “traditional marriages” do their congregants have and anyone who has been divorced, has committed adultery or has a baby out of wedlock doesn’t count.

The idea that churches would somehow be forced to perform same-sex marriages is almost ridiculous. A reverend has the right to refuse to marry people, just as a rabbi has the right not to perform an interfaith marriage. I know people who have been directly affected by both. Some ministers don’t want to perform marriages for people who haven’t been baptized or people who aren’t members of their congregation. Religious institutions have, and unfortunately always will have, the right of refusal. They can even refuse to let a funeral be held at their location and with the amount of money that some religious institutions bring in, I almost want to laugh that they even mentioned losing funding. I thought churches were run on faith and where there’s faith there’s a way, right?

I like to believe I’m a religious person, but sometimes I wonder if perhaps I am not as religious as I should be, because apparently I’ve been missing a lot of God’s memos.

Status: Thanking God that there are some churches out there that understand the meaning of “come as you are” and freely accept that we are all sinners.