"What Good Fortune for Governments That the People Do Not Think" or Act!

For those who do not live in Los Angeles, you won't be aware of him, but we have a local news celebrity by the name of Hal Fishman. Hal has been a local entity in television for as long as I've lived here and a while back started making editorials on a regular basis. This post is partially a response to one of his recent pieces as well as some related political commentary of my own.

I have met Mr. Fishman on a couple of occasions, out of work when he eats at a little restaurant near where he keeps a personal plane, or at least used to... He is a very personable man, quite cordial and overall seems to be very well informed. But as happens to us all, we sometimes get so busy thinking about one aspect of something that we fail to go deep enough to the other side, this is one of those times in my not so humble opinion...

Well, someone at KTLA's website needs to get on the ball. The commentaries haven't been updated in quite a while so you will have to take my word that Hal said the following...

Hal was giving a piece on a high school having some controversy over its yearbook and a couple of students. The yearbook, like many, allows (graduating?) students to give a quote that they would like to have on their picture. The problem seems to be that a couple of students wanted to use quotes from Adolf Hitler and some of the local people were quite upset about it.

Hal went into why was it not caught by the teacher-advisor to the yearbook staff and the usual statements of Hitler's vile history. He then went on to comment that if the students really wanted to have quotes from Hitler's Mein Kampf attached to their names for eternity, so be it.

He never really mentioned the idea of Freedom of Speech, but then when Hitler is being referenced, we usually forget that the concept also means saying that which might make your blood boil, sorry (not) political correctness (but I digress).

Shame the one question that I was waiting for was never answered in the piece--what were the quotes?

After doing a quick search on the internet, I found an article from the News & Observer that says the quotes were:

1. "Strength lies not in defense, but in attack."


2. "The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."

One of the boy's father was quoted as saying, "I guess he didn't seriously consider the source; he was more interested in the quote," and while the source is questionable, the quotes themselves are very timely in their subject. No wonder they weren't mentioned.

Now my Conservative, Republican, Bush supporting friends, look away, You are definitely NOT going to like what I'm about to say...

The first quote has nearly been identically quoted in substance by the Pentagon in the form of our recent examples in foreign policy, especially in the so called War on Terror and Iraq. This administration has basically made policy saying we will attack before provocation or imminent danger.

As to the second, we have examples of that all around us in this administration. From the claims of undeniable proof of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq to Saddam Hussein's claimed involvement in al-Qaeda and the events of September 11th. Even though the President has admitted "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]" nearly every time they try to justify the war in Iraq, they mention 9/11 as if the opposite is the case, not a big lie is it?

So maybe the title of this post is accurate since though he has low numbers, the people are not willing to do something about it, that would require thought and action from the busy lives of the people.

By the way, the quote at the subject of this entry, "What good fortune for governments that the people do not think" is from Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Joachim Fest. Maybe the world's most famous fascist CAN teach us a little something.

What and How pt 2 [Essay]

Where I ended this Sunday morning works really well. We had just come full circle and were able to come back to the scripture of my youth with a clean slate, so to speak.

I sometimes think that indoctrinating children into religion is both good and bad. It's good in that the young get exposure to the idea of something greater than themselves (which in the world of today, is sorely lacking any controls on their little, ahem, egos) as well as the idea that there is more to life than making money. But some churches go to far in the indoctrination for my taste. It's great to familiarize children with Bible verses and stories, but when you start instilling the religious zealousness we see growing around us, I think you do them harm.

Telling children about God is like the old story about children and sex:

---

Little Billy walks up to his Mother and asks, "Where did I come from?"

Knowing that this would come up at some time, she had prepared and went on to tell her child about the birds and the bees.

Upon completion, she looked at Billy and said, "Does that answer your question?"

Billy paused for a second and then replied, "I don't know, Tommy's from Cincinnati; where did I come from?"

---

Most children are not ready for deep theological arguments of creeds and doctrines and telling them that their little friends are going to Hell because they are not _______________ (fill with your denomination or religion) is actually quite hateful. It's bad enough that in the name of safety and concern we steal our children's innocence away from them, but must we start them down the road of closed minds regarding explanations of that which most of us don't understand?

After having made my way around the track and coming back to the Gospels, I could see what was there and even though the programmed interpretations still popped up on occasion, they were controllable since I knew them for what they were. It's one thing to believe what we are told and do it knowing that we are following another's teachings, but it's another thing completely to do it without realizing it. I run into so many people who spout theologies that they have learned in church from their pastors, but have no idea where they came from. Funny, though not one of Martin Luther's 95 Theses against the church; he translated the Bible from Latin to German so that the people should have access and the authority to read the scripture for themselves.

I sometimes wonder why people even give their children Bibles. Not the children's Bibles that are basically story books using scripture as the source, but actual Bibles. If these people ever actually read the book, they would never put one in the hands of a small, immature, child. There's murder, sex, nudity, hatred and other things that are not appropriate for kids.

Now don't get me wrong, I happen to love the Bible and find it to be an excellent body of work to learn from, I just think that it should get at least a PG-13 rating (Strange that the same people who feel that the Harry Potter books are too much for kids will hand a child a Bible that makes them look tame).

I have been accused of being very tough on Christianity and Christians in general, that I paint with a very broad brush. To some degree it is true, I am tough on the followers who make a general ass of themselves without taking the time and energy to understand what they are saying. I am also tough on it because it is the dominant religion in this country and (as has been seen lately) being publicly overrun by zealots who are not that different from the Fundamentalist Muslims they like to rant about.

I had someone say, when I made the above comment, that "at least Christians were not telling each other to blow themselves up in the name of God and take as many innocents with them." Currently, no (though a few have hinted at doing just as heinous acts) but our history as Christians is just as bloody and vile with Crusades, Witch-hunts and the Dark Ages. We have no business casting stones from our glass towers.

I have noticed in the study of Religious History that most groups tend to deify some aspect of the sources. The Jews deified the Law of Moses, the Christians--Jesus, the Muslims seem to be deifying the culture that the Prophet Mohammed lived in. The tendency is usually followed by an egocentric explosion to the "unclean" which certain sects of Muslims are currently experiencing. The only true difference between Christians then and these Fundamentalist Muslims now are the tools of destruction are infinitely more devastating.

I wrote someplace else the following:

---

The origin of the problem lies in the egocentric idea that most religions and schools of thought promote in their students that they have the "one and only TRUE way" (emphasis usually implied). The difficulty is that when one questions their tradition, the assumption becomes that one is implying that their path is not a "true way", when actually the question should be; is it the "one and only?"

---

When you get past the cultural referencetraditionsitions and get to the actual messages, you find that Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Lao Tzu and a plethora of others all were saying the same thing: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Or as Krishna puts it in the Bhagavad-gita; "Just fix your mind upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me always, without a doubt."

What and How pt 1 [Essay]

I'm sitting in Downtown Los Angeles on Olive, just south of 7th St, waiting for a customer who is at a wedding on the next block. Kind of boring, but it's what I'm paid to do as a chauffeur. At least I'm on the clock.

I was looking over the recent posts and if you were not aware of it, you might think that this blog is about being gay or gay rights. While I am gay and I do care about my rights and the possibility of meeting someone and getting married someday, it's not my main concern by a long shot. I guess it's because it is June. June has always been a big month for me as a gay man since it is when the majority of the Pride Celebrations take place and in response, the less open minded usually start doing their burning-in-hell dance.

This blog is mainly about Spirit and the day-to-day thoughts and experiences of exploring that Spirit.

I am a student (predominantly self-taught) of comparative religion, theology and philosophy. Basically, I am fascinated by the plethora of expressions of God, the Higher Power or whatever you want to call it/him/her.

Personally, I think English needs a new gender pronoun for expressing that which is beyond gender. "He" or "She" ends up alienating many people for a fair sized collection of reasons and "It" just seems insulting. I wouldn't be to surprised if I figure out and coin a new term, but I haven't a clue as of yet...

When I was a child, going to Rock Hill Baptist Church in St. Louis, MO, I found church interesting, but frustrating. On some level, I knew that the truth was there someplace, but it wasn't in what I was being told.

When I told my parents about my being gay, they didn't take it well and there was a bit of a backlash that I hadn't really expected. About the same time, our pastor gave a sermon that went something along the lines of how if one accepts one part of the Bible, one must accept the rest. Well, having been brought up in the Southern Baptist Convention, I knew there were many things in the Bible that the church not only disagreed with, but actively condemned.

When I left the church, initially I left God and all thoughts of Him as well. I was of the opinion that if any God was going to allow these things to be done in His name, screw Him. If this is where God was, I wanted nothing to do with it. I kind of threw the baby out with the bath water.

Not long after this, I started pursuing interests in religion that were out of the mainstream. About this time, I was introduced to the Hari-Krishnas, the Baha'i, some Japanese Buddhists and a couple of witches. Now at the time I wasn't really sure what to make of any of them, my Southern Baptist upbringing being somewhat offended, but they all seemed nice enough that I didn't walk away with any problems. In years to come, these introductions would be of great help in my growing understandings.

I spent some time studying witchcraft, probably because my father would start dropping solid gold ones if he ever found out. But through the study of witchcraft, I learned about the sub-conscience and the purpose and intent of ritual.

My studies of Shamanism was a continuation of the above, but more because I had heard that many shamanistic cultures had been quite accepting of homosexuals.

As time went on, I would work my way through scripture from many religions including the Bhagavad-gita which brought me back to the Gospels of the New Testament. By this time, I could read the Gospels without all the preconceived notions that I had been brought up with and actually see what was there. How wonderful that was for me. I could actually read what Jesus said and hear it and not hear my Sunday School teachers indoctrinating me to be a Southern Baptist.

I'll continue this later, I'm getting pretty tired and the bed is calling. Nighty night.

A Personal History of these X-ians

The following is a copy of a post that I made to a site I stumbled across called God Hates Westboro Baptist Church. The sight is a recent startup commenting on the collection of "God Hates..." sites this so called church runs.

Enjoy!

---

I use the title of X-ians in the same way that X-mas is used to remove Christ from the holiday. These people are not Christians (meaning to be Christlike) by any teaching of Jesus' that I am aware of.

I have had a fairly long history with these people over the years. I believe the first time I heard from them was from a group of Fundies at the West Hollywood Gay Pride Fest where I was given a tract and if the name hadn't been so offensive, I would most likely thrown it away.

At the time, I had a job that allowed me plenty of time to surf the web and work on my personal projects. One night I spent several hours going through their website and seeing many things I remembered from telling my parents about me...

I grew up a Southern Baptist on the northern edge of the Bible Belt.

After reading the vast majority of the site, I realized a few interesting details:

• They subscribe to the theology of predestined salvation. Basically, this idea says that we come into the world with salvation predetermined and if you are not one of the selected, too bad. You will never be able to get into heaven.


• The quote: "God does not hate them because they are homosexuals; they are homosexuals because God hates them."


• The quote: "When people go to funerals, they have thoughts of mortality, heaven, hell, eternity, etc., on their minds. It's the perfect time to warn them of things to come."

After the last 2 in particular, I was curious about an apparent contradiction in their theology. So, like the trusting idiot I have been known to be on occasion, I sent them a very polite e-mail asking how they justified it.

Basically, I asked "if I'm Gay because God hates me and there is no way for me to get into heaven because he has washed his hands of me as you state in your FAQ, why show up at funerals and basically rub salt into the wound, little less depriving me of what little joy I might find in this life since, by your understanding of the scripture, I'm damned eternally?"

Now, to be honest, I never really expected a conversation or much beyond maybe a curt thank you with a few misrepresented verses. What I got instead was an e-mail account that started being flooded with junk mail till my provider asked me to change the address. Now I can't prove it came from them, but most of it was of the same high-brow caliber as the site itself.

For those of you who may not be familiar, these are the people that showed up at Matthew Shepard and is currently showing up at fallen soldiers funerals (with their recent site GodHatesAmerica.com) since as a nation we are now hated by God for being tolerant of homosexuals amongst other ideas.

The sad fact is that these people actually mean well, they just worship a god of hatred and judgment and are in need or our love and saintly attempts not to squish them into oblivion. 8-P Seriously, they need our pity more than our retaliation.

If we judge them as harshly as they judge others, what do we do but lower ourselves to their level and become infected with the same venom that has won their hearts and souls?

Spirit Geek

Toy Matinee -- "Last Plane Out"

Thank you to Miss Elizabeth who was kind enough to hunt for a copy of a CD for me. I thought it would be fairly difficult, but I guess I must have been mistaken. It turns out that the guy who started the band, Kevin Gilbert has had quite a career. Well, no wonder I like the album so much, the dude's got some talent.

A friend of mine introduced me to "Toy Matinee" early in the 90's when I was living in Canoga Park. I liked the album and my friend was kind enough to give me the cassette tape of the album while he kept the CD. I liked it enough that though I still have the tape, it's nearly unplayable. When he first had me listen, it was to a song called "There Was A Little Boy" which touched me in it's touching tribute to a young man dealing with being gay.

Over the years, the song that has always touched me the most was "Last Plane Out" which has always spoken to me on many layers.

Here are the lyrics...

LAST PLANE OUT

Greetings from Sodom
How we wish you were here
The weather's getting warmer
Now that the trees are all cleared
There's no time for a conscience
And we recognize no crime
Yeah we got dogs and Valvoline
It's a pretty damn good time

Chorus
Men of reason, not of rhyme
Keep the spoils and share your crime
Goodman, Badman, lost without
A hope for passage on the last plane out

There was one repressed do-gooder
And a few who still believed
Yes I think there were five good men here yesterday
But they were asked to leave
So we've kept the good old vices
And laboured to invent a few
With cake in vulgar surplus
We can have it and eat it, too

Chorus

Men of reason, hide your face
Walking backwards, plays his ace
Goodman, Badman, lost without
A hope for passage on the last plane out

Here's a concept you can't dance to
An idea you cannot hum
There may not be an empty seat
When all is said and done
I'm not the guy who sings the hymns
No bleeding heart to mend
But I like the part where Icarus
Hijacks the little red hen

Someone said the Big Man
May be joining us soon
But I never was the type to hang
With the harbingers of doom
And this party is addictive
Self-destructive, no doubt
So I hope that someone saves a seat for me
On the last plane out

Chorus

Excess and Illusion

I was over at a friends yesterday and she is finally online from her apartment. She had the cable modem and it was connected, but we couldn't get things going from the USB port. So, I brought an Ethernet cable and plugged it in that way and off it went. I didn't have to install drivers or anything. Thank God.

I don't have cable at home, so we had been watching the Food Network all afternoon. Interesting, but I'm sure I've gained at least 10 pounds watching all this stuff being cooked. They had a contest called "Food Network Caters Your Vegas Wedding." I was absolutely blown away with how much food could be consumed in a single event. It was the type of feast that one should attend at least once in their lifetime, but not too many times or one would end up making Shelly Winters look svelte.

The majority of my friends, straight and gay, are so absorbed with eating, looking good, getting laid or some other activity to excess that they have lost all perspective of something larger within themselves. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I sometimes am just as guilty, if not more so.

When one starts to search for and begins to walk a spiritually oriented path, the temptations of the world seem to increase in their intensity. I suspect that when one begins to see through the illusion of what we perceive as reality, a mixture of fear of the unknown and our attachment to things, kick in to try and hold us where we are.

In the movie "Little Buddha" this is illustrated as the temptation of Siddhartha by Mara (the personification of evil) who sends his beautiful daughters to tempt the awakening sage in an attempt to keep him attached to the illusion. In the Judeo-Christian religions, we call this entity Lucifer, the Devil and/or Satan (which basically translates to the Adversary) and in Hinduism, while it can be referred to by many names and ideas, Mother Maya is the personification that I can understand the most.

There is a story that says that Satan is actually the guardian of the gate of Heaven, testing souls to see if they are ready for entry. If he finds them lacking, he sends them back to Earth. So, his title of Adversary is earned but is in the service of God (talk about demonizing the opposition).

When we look at these characters, we tend to judge them as evil or bad. But the fact is, they perform a necessary service in creation and for us. It is said that Mother Maya creates the illusion of this world in sadness, knowing that it brings pain and sorrow to her children, us. But it is through the lessons and experiences of the illusion that we eventually become aware of something higher than the illusion.

I find it interesting that the one universal point that every single religion agrees upon is the one point that we all count on but ignore. We count on it to get us into heaven, our next life or whatever our personal view of the afterlife is, but we live our day-to-day existence completely outside of it. What is this universal agreement? No matter what you believe about the source or purpose of this existence we call life (except for those who thing we wink out into nothingness since they believe life is nothing but a chemical reaction) we all believe that we are an eternal living soul that temporarily inhabits a physical body.

Try to view the world and your life from the position of that eternal entity and it will amaze you how much less stress and strife there is in your life. We'll get into original sin and how it relates to this entity at a later time...

Mission Accomplished

The new expandable system is up and seems to be running....

YEAH!!!!!

Let me know if you run into any problems with it. Though you do need to have JavaScript turned on for it to work. I know that it may not be backwards compatible, but hey, it's 2006 and some assumptions need to be made. If you don't have JavaScript on, you should be able to see everything, the usage will be just a bit below par. (Just ignore the Expand/Collapse post links under each message)

My undying thanks to ChuBlogga and his post of such excellent instructions.

Nighty night all, >>>Yawn

Quasi-Bitch #1

Well, the last few days have been both productive and annoying as all hell.

As you can tell, I now have these tags for reading all of my sometimes longwinded posts. Read an intro, and choose to read the rest or not. It came straight off the help found on Blogger, but it shows up at the end of each and every message--annoying and deserving of a severe thrashing with a 2x4...

I've been working on different ways to get around the problem, but to no avail so far. The best solution that I really liked was a simple little JavaScript to handle the printing, but one little problem, Blogger is not too interested in my inserting a JS snippet into the posts. We're looking into it and a couple more solutions. Vee veell sook-seed!!!!

I also made a friend happy by signing up on MySpace, God help me... Well, Hayley should be happy... (Girl, get your butt across the pond and back to LA soon!!!) She wants me to completely pimp out the page and make it totally hot. I must be getting old, to me, pimping something out means selling it for sex. ;-P Well, I guess I will when I get a chance but it will be after I get a few other things done first. BTW, Hayley, that song "Playgirl Central" by Tila Tequila is totally awesome.

Work is running a bit slow, which is helpful since I'm spending way too much time tinkering around here and still looking for an apartment. I actually found one and was accepted, but I think I've decided not to take it. My current roomie has 2 cats of which one thinks I'm it's human. Now, I don't usually believe in supporting such silly fantasies, but I have become attached to her as well. The last thing I want in my life is a pet, but I can't imagine coming home and not having her there either--what a conundrum I've gotten myself into.

About a week or so ago, I replaced my dying cell phone (funeral arrangements are pending but will probably involve a baseball bat and small thermonuclear devices) with a new one. I happen to be a fan of Motorola for radio equipment, so I got a deal on a Razr v3 from Cingular. Not nearly as cool as it used to be now that EVERYONE has them, but I like it.

Well enough whining, I'm sure you can tell that the morning has been a bit irritating and is getting to me a bit. Thank God, it will pass.

OK, it passed, the Blogger spell checker had to be taught the word Blogger. Ack!

Pride and Gay Pride pt 2 [Essay]

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that there are basically 3 types of homosexuals:

1. Biological
2. Selective
3. Psychological
   

Biological homosexuals came into the world the way that they are. Be it God or genetics, they were decided from day one what they would grow into.

Selective homosexuals are people who have honestly chosen to be Gay. I know many women who have followed this path after horrid relations with men where they were raped, molested, abused, etc. I have met very few men that seem to fall into this category.

Psychological homosexuals are living in a mistaken state. People in this state usually grew up being called such things as "mamma's boy," "queer," "girlie boy" and such and after a time, they began to believe it, hence they never find true happiness since they are accidentally living a lie. These are the people who programs like Exodus, amongst others, get their claimed successes. Though, like the founders of Exodus, some of their success has not lasted due to the fact the an unhappy person can make himself do nearly anything for a while, just like gay men who marry women and later come out.

I think I am from the first category, biological.

I always sensed that I was different, but didn't know exactly how until I was about six or seven years old. About that time, a group of friends and I were playing in a local park when we came across a box of Playboys. Being young boys, we immediately took them off to someplace to inspect the booty, a tree house.

I saw the pictures of the naked women and thought most of them were quite pretty, but that was all. My friends were completely enamored and it was obvious that they found it much more interesting than I did. I really did read the jokes page and part of some interview and maybe a bit of Xaviera Hollander's column, I remember the lipstick in the shape of a penis as well as the title "The Happy Hooker".

I didn't think that much about it at the time, as it wasn't the first time that I had reacted to something differently than my friends.

A few months later, we were in the same park and we found another box of magazines, only this time, there were some Hustler and other more graphic magazines than Playboy.

I was looking through a Hustler and saw a spread of a couple all done up in silver lamé in various poses and it was the first time I ever saw a naked man with an erection. Immediately, I knew what my friends had been going on about the last time we had found these and after hearing the word "faggot" thrown around, I knew it would be most prudent to keep this to myself. Peer pressure and cultural prejudices had already been planted within and were bearing fruit (pun intended).

Now is going to come a confession that I never would have expected to make, the man in the photo spread was Ron Jeremy. Now I have nothing against the man and in fact have heard that he is a totally cool dude and amazingly real, but he has NEVER been my type in any way shape or form, but he was my introduction to men en rampant.

I remember my early crushes on boys from school and I nearly failed gym a few times because I was terrified of showering after class for fear of sprouting wood. I have known many girls and women in my life, but I have never found myself sexually attracted to one.

When I was about 14 or 15, after my mother died and my dad remarried, I had a few issues with what was going on, so we entered family counseling, but I was the only one that went on a regular basis. The psychologist one day asked me if I was gay, or a homosexual. I said "No!" You see at this time, the only images of gay men I had other than kid insults were sick old men in Chicago who molested little boys and then, after killing them, buried under the house. I couldn't kill anyone, so there was no way I could be a homosexual. So when he followed the first question with an inquiry as to if I knew what a homosexual was, I had the same answer. He explained it to me and I realized that was the word that described me; as well as faggot and queer.

At one time I thought I might think I was gay since I had never slept with a woman. So, I made the decision that if the opportunity presented itself and she was someone I could care about, I'd try it. Well, it did and so did I and well (my female friends: please don't be offended or upset with me) but I could have more fun with a bowl of warm Jell-O. It was what it was, but it was quite obvious to both of us that while I could function, I wasn't going to be happy about it, even though in that moment in time, I wanted to be.

I can't help but laugh when people call it a choice. While it might be for a small minority, for most of us, we spend a fair amount of our lives kicking and screaming against this piece of self-discovery. Why would anyone "choose" to be a social pariah? I had someone tell me (actually, I've heard this on many occasions) that homosexuals are in the business of recruiting people since we cannot breed on our own as if we were a dying race, slated for extinction. Strange, even when people have had to live amazingly closeted lives and barely acknowledged it to themselves, they came across others of like orientation.

We are VERY familiar with the pains of trying to live being what we are not. We would have to be amazingly hateful people to convince others via recruitment to live a life that isn't what they were intended to be by their maker. Sure, there are some people who are selfish enough to try that, but contrary to the idea that I was taught, that mankind is inherently evil due to original sin, I see too much evidence that is not truly the case.

On September 11th, 2001 the world watched a small group of people do amazingly terrible acts in the name of God as they saw him. From the majority of the world's view this was an incredibly selfish and misguided act that would be expected from the original sin, man is evil crowd. If man truly was that way, then there would have been no heroes out of firemen and police, amongst others, to try and save anyone or thing other than their own skin. You have to be truly good at the core of your essence and being to do that kind of a job, little less after watching the aftermath. Sure, man has a tendency to be amazingly selfish in the day-to-day living of his life, but I think that is truly a learned behavior than his true nature. People consistently show their inherent goodness when it really counts. Maybe, it's time that we learned to make it the core of our day-to-day life as well...

I sometimes wonder why there is so much animosity from straight men toward gay. Maybe I am just simple-minded, but I always assumed that the problem was rooted in the nature of humans to judge, fear and hate that which they do not understand.

I remember a few years ago during the early years of the Clinton administration when he was addressing the issue of gays in the military, we won't get into what I think of the outcome ("Don't Ask, Don't Tell"). I was listening to some radio talk show and I have no idea who was being interviewed, but when asked why straight men seem to hate gay men so much, the person being interviewed said "Straight men are afraid that gay men will do to straight men what straight men have been doing to women for thousands of years." I loved that.

Earlier this evening, I was thinking about it and I had an interesting thought. It occurred to me that in nearly every culture that has such strong religious taboos are very much patriarchal societies that control property, power and inheritance through the men. Women may own some property, but the men are the ones endowed with the ability to control it. Cultural taboos and religious morality laws usually have some justifiable reason behind them and I was thinking that the union of 2 men would result in the creation of a very powerful business interest in an early culture. With 2 power yielding individuals, both able to make binding arrangements and work together collectively, you would definitely have a force to be reckoned with and that in time could quite easily become taboo for all the wrong reasons.

It's worth thinking about.

I think of it this way: most of us 'noids are so bad at loving anything other than ourselves (and some barely do that) that who are we to judge how others love. I tell people that when mankind in general learns to truly love everyone and everything, then and only then might God grant us the privilege to judge what forms it may take. Until then, we're making fools of ourselves, showing just how far from God we have become.

Pride and Gay Pride pt 1 [Essay]

Yesterday was the Christopher Street West (a.k.a. The West Hollywood Gay Pride) Parade and Festival. As usual, I went to the parade but skipped the festival itself this year. For those who have never been, it's a blast and definitely worth checking out at least once.

I could go into it's history and how it came to be, but if you are interested, they seem to do a pretty good job of recalling all that on their site.

Also as usual, I started my day with stumbling across the fundies (as I so nicely call them) a group of people who like to say they are there to love me by pounding home the idea that I am going to Hell for being gay. Well, as to that, I figure if God didn't want me to be gay, he shouldn't have made me that way. Just as heterosexuals never chose to be straight, I never chose to be gay either.

As is usual, they had the normal selection of Bible verses to quote from, though 2 come from Leviticus, they feel its fine to eat shellfish and their wives let them leave the house wearing cottons and wools and when was the last time ANY of them declared their wives unclean during her monthly visitor little less after childbirth. But though they have little to no interest in following the vast majority of rules and regulations of the book of Leviticus, they have absolutely no problem judging the guests and participants of the festival with them. People like that give Christians a bad name in my book and I find it such a shame that the majority of Christians don't do something about them.

I see the majority of these same people here every year and would have thought they might have had enough experience at the parades to at least ask some questions of the ideas and assumptions they made very clear in the conversations.

The first gentleman (I use that term loosely) would make some jack-ass statement and paint himself into a corner and instead of re-trying, he just got louder and louder. The second was more polite and we at least discussed the differences in our positions and made an effort at civility, if not courtesy. The third was as bad as the first except instead of getting loud, he would start throwing insults and really vile assumptions.

He would say that being gay meant that I was a drunkard and a lascivious sex pervert. I may have an occasional glass of wine with dinner and once in a while have a cocktail when I go out with friends, but I very rarely get plastered or even a bit tipsy, so drunkard is taking it a bit far. As far as being a sex pervert, I've been celibate (mainly) for the last 7 years. I have always been a bit old-fashioned in my dating in that I actually like knowing someone before I go to bed with them. Albeit, in West Hollywood, that makes dating a bit difficult but I don't spend much time there.

A friend had gone to the festivities with me and thought I was crazy for wasting my time in such a futile pursuit. I told him that I wasn't actually expecting any of them to become gay tolerant, little less friendly, but that you do it for the one single individual that later might actually look into the things I had said and have his heart, if not his mind, opened a bit more. Hence, why I get called a Spiritual Johnny Appleseed.

So what is being Gay? It's about being the person God made me and if that means being attracted to and loving those of the same gender as myself, so be it. For myself, Gay Pride is being just that and celebrating the diversity of God's creation by not letting simple and hateful people force me to be ashamed of something that I have little to no control over (I've decided to do a part 2 of this entry that will go into my personal history a bit on finding out about my being Gay).

To many people, being Gay is about going to bars and getting laid every day. That's a community activity that happens to most people when they come out of the closet. When you become aware that others are the same as you, that you are not a freak of nature and all alone, people have a tendency to over-compensate for the perceived loss of the experiences that most people get during adolescence. Though a hedonistic lifestyle has become a common and well publicized aspect of Gay life, these are nearly as prevalent in the heterosexual community, not a great idea for a central focus to a life beyond the crotch.

Though I am sure that many disagree with me, as far as I've been able to determine, the morality of nearly all activities is in the why, not the what. If I sleep with someone because I want to use them as a life-sized, 98.6 degree, breathing sex toy, I demean both them and myself. On the other hand, if I sleep with someone because I wish to share myself body and soul with them and they likewise with me, that's a beautiful thing and should be celebrated, not berated.

To Be With or To Be Without a Credit History

I have been trying to find a new place to move and have found out just how much the world depends upon credit and the history of it.

I have been checking out apartments all over the west-side of Los Angeles, such as Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista and Playa del Rey. Once I got over the sticker shock, I started to run into possible problems with the management companies. It used to be that there were many mom-and-pop buildings in this town and you were checked out, but you could get in by making a good impression on the manager; not any more. Now, most buildings are operated by these management companies that don't seem to care about anything but covering their corporate butts by making sure that applications are near perfect credit and as minimal risk as possible.

So what does someone do who actually carries no debt do? My pop instilled what seemed to be an excellent cash-flow philosophy that has since reeked havoc in my life.

Don't spend more than you have and only buy what you can afford,

Spirit Geek's Dad

hence I have never really used credit.

A short while ago, I started an investment into a piece of property in Tucson, AZ. I figured that when it was finished and I owned it outright, I would take out an equity loan and see about investing in some other property since I use a technique that allows me to acquire it for pennies on the dollar.

Since I live very simply, I never really worried about identity theft. Who in their right mind would want to be me financially? The closest to ID theft I ever came was a (suspected) slightly disreputable website that got a bit ticked when I managed to track him down in Toronto and ask for both a cancellation of my membership, but also a refund for a duplicate billing. But that's another story for another time.

I went to Annual Credit Report and managed to get a copy of my credit report from all 3 of the major agencies.

The only thing that actually showed up was an ancient Sprint bill. I had lost my cellphone and though reported to Sprint and promised that they would turn the phone off and I wouldn't be billed, they didn't and I was to the tune of $120. They had sold the collection account to some company (that never actually contacted me though my address was on the reports) but was kind enough to report every 3 months the overdue account. (Nice, huh?)

Anyhow, the point of all this is that my lack of credit history and the tendency of the management companies is not making my life easy. Fortunately, I am not in any hurry and I can take my time and both find a place I really like and the right place will not have a problem with my credit history or lack thereof.

The view of life and the universe that I have tells me that it will work in the right time and place. Worrying and fretting about it is not going to make it any better. Situations like this are not actually tests per se, but little dramas that make the universe an interesting place for the soul to visit. From our little localized perspective, it can seem pretty $%!&ed-up but if we open up to a wider view, it becomes a fairly fun experience if we will let it.