Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to lawful assembly. These are necessary to protect the democratic republic. We live in a country where all religions are allowed to practice their rituals regardless of their strangeness (unless the act of practice causes physical harm or infringes on another groups religious rights.) It is called tolerance. I am not moved by arguments pushing the fact that "other country's don't allow it" since we as a nation have always prided ourselves as being above that behavior.

Freedom isn't always to our personal benefit. Sometimes freedom means tolerating something that is abhorrent to your values. I don't like the KKK but they have a right to peaceful assembly regardless of the drivel they spout. I think the Westboro church is obscene but they have a right to practice their religion and spout what ever crap they wish as a citizen of the United States. I am not a fan of the Catholic and Christian churches whose agenda seems to include imposing their religious doctrine on the rest of the country regardless of the reality that no matter what they would like to believe about the founding fathers (who were mainly Deist with a few prominent atheist) this country was founded as a haven free from government intervention into religion and religious intervention into government. Even your Jesus didn't want to intrude into government prefering to "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's".

There has been a lot of furor this past week and although no one probably care I feel the need to voice my opinion.

Prop 8 has been overturned. Finally, a voice of reason who realizes that 1. Marriage is a civil union as it applies to the government. 2. There is no demonstrable harm to traditional couples by the inclusion of non-traditional couples. and 3. You can not legislate discrimination by majority rules. We are a Democratic republic and the courts are set up to prevent the majority from imposing it's will on a minority with no good reason. And for the record, you will never be able to marry your goat or a child because the defining feature of marriage has not been changed by this ruling, marriage is an institution where by two CONSENTING adults enter into a contract. Animals and children can not give consent. Nuff said.

President Obama has reminded us in no uncertain terms that freedom of religion is a basic right that can not be denied no matter how we feel about the choice. Perhaps the Muslim community should reconsider the location of their center as gesture of goodwill but there is no legal standing to deny them the right to build on private land, zoned for such a use. Regardless, it's important to remember first and foremost, we are not at war with Islam and they are not at war with us. We are fighting a group of extremist. They are no more Islam than David Koresh was Christianity. There will always be those who corrupt religion, but it is important that we never allow religion to corrupt our government. When religions get a hold of the government the result is always bloody.

After 8 years of shuffling, stuttering and smirking we finally have a leader who is well spoken, intelligent and speaks the truth even knowing it will be twisted beyond belief by his opponents. When he defends the constitution he is called traitor, when he seeks to make lawful changes with the support of the country he is called usurper. Bigots and selfish "I got Miners" would sit idly by and watch the old, the poor and the sick die for lack of basic healthcare. The voices denouncing "Death panels" would rather have insurance companies, whose main interest is a bottom line, make that choice instead. We will be judged in the future not for what we did but by what we allowed to happen because it wasn't our suffering.

I am not a fan of religion of any kind. I would like to see even less sign of religion in our government but at the very least I want to see more of the "Compassionate Christ" and less Leviticus.

I could go on but you probably don't care about my thoughts and it is a beautiful day out, I need some sun shine, for all the bad and good of this week it is still summer and there is sunshine and I need to soak up my fill before the impending winter.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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