Are we becoming schizo?

I sometimes wonder what the differences are between the majority of people and schizophrenia...

We tend to think of schizophrenia only in it's more delusional aspects, but according to the American Heritage Dictionary, it can be defined as:

A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities: the national schizophrenia that results from carrying out an unpopular war.

Schizophrenia is "characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, hallucinations, and psychotic behavior." Sounds a lot like what I see going on around us in the mundane world.

As a culture, we tend to be withdrawing from reality into prepackaged televised entertainments or into our own little worlds of Internet fantasy or escape. We have turned off our logical thinking ability to the point where we can be told something we know to be an outright lie and get to the point where we believe it.

I would ask if it is not delusional to think we can continue poisoning the environment we depend upon and not expect there would be repercussions?

Is it not delusional to create fictional entities that are bestowed all the rights and privileges of the citizenry with none of the responsibilities. If that is not bad enough, the courts have compounded the insanity, in my opinion, by declaring the sole responsibility of corporate management to be short-term profit. This means if a decision has the benefit of improving the numbers for this quarter but will destroy the company in a year, they are required to take the immediate benefit.

We now have a new administration coming into power shortly in Washington and what will happen if they do a complete 180 on what they were elected to do? If the last eight years are any indication, not only will we allow it to happen, we will re-elect them in 4 years to continue.

There are so many more examples that would likely get any individual locked up in a padded cell, but the state can convince us is not only in our best interest but absolutely logical and proper.

So it becomes a question of how we begin to escape the insanity that we see around us.

Some would say that a revolution of sorts is needed, but before we start fighting, ask what it is that needs to be changed, what it needs to be changed into and how to get it there. People will kill each other over partially formed ideas so before you start a war, unlike the Bush administration, have an exit strategy or at least a completely formed set of goals that you are trying to attain (Sorry, I just had to go there).

Before you start worrying about the larger picture, take the Buddha's advice and find the place for yourself. If you try to force others into a particular perspective or action that you do not live, you do nothing but show yourself a hypocrite.

If you wish to escape the insanity of repeating the past or what seems may be global schizophrenia, find the source for yourself, call it whatever you might, God, the Is, Mother Nature, Isis, Zeus or whatever. Find your relationship to what is beyond the physical and love that first then the rest will fall into it's correct perspective.

One thing you will find is that you become the second verse of the Gospel of St. Thomas;

Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

Seek the truth of who and what you are, when you find that you will become disturbed because you will see the folly that the majority are living in but eventually you awaken to the fact that the universe is what we have created as our educational platform.

From our limited perspectives it seems outright terrible at times, it is perfect, a perfect deity could create nothing less. It is perfect for its time and place.

Jesus used to say that he knew "his flock," what he meant was that he was able to identify those who were able to understand his message and technique of delivery. Those who were not ready or not of his "flock" were not to be subdued into submission, but allowed to continue their educational curriculum.

Grow, offer what you learn to those who want to learn but if you have to force anyone to the truth, either you are not as learned as you may think or they will only learn to resent you for it, hence the "pearls before swine" reference.

An Open Letter

I don't know what insanity took over me to actually send this, but I just mailed the following letter to 365Gay.com's submission department, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Hello,

I am a life coach and spiritual teacher, not a legal scholar in any sense of the word, but I have been wondering about this legal question ever since I heard about the ballot initiative that became Prop. 8 after the California Supreme Court overturned Prop. 22.

If there is any validity to the questions, I would appreciate if this could be forwarded to someone who could put it to good use.

As you know, in 2000 California voters passed Proposition 22 which placed the following text into the California Family Code as Section 308.5:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

This single line of text was overturned by the California Supreme Court as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution.

Proposition 8 placed the exact same text, literally, into the State Constitution as Article I, Section 7.5. Now the questions are as follows...

1. Since this line of code has been determined to be in violation, does it cease to be in violation now?
   
   
2. Does it make a difference that this exact code was found to be invalid before it was even qualified as a ballot initiative? I think this may be the first time that a law has been added after being declared unconstitutional.
   
   
3. In what ways would this invalidate Proposition 8 and if nothing else, does this create any kind of Constitutional Crisis since it introduces an ambiguity into the Constitution?
   
   
4. If the above is correct, how does one go about bringing this to the attention of of the Supreme Court, or whatever process this has to go through to have it ruled upon?

I have heard several cases are being brought into the court, but they seem to the same old cases that never seem to go very far very fast. This would seem to be the most direct and expedient path if it is valid.

Once again, if this is of any validity, would you please send it on to anyone who can make use of it.

Thank you,

Robert A. Burgener

We will see if I get any responses...

End of A Season

Tuesday is finally over and we have a new President of the United States.

Congrats to President-elect Obama on a substantive victory. I may not be your biggest fan, but I did vote for you over Senator McCain.

Here in California, there were several initiatives, there are ALWAYS several, to look at and while most were bond measures, and there were a couple that caught my interest.

Proposition 8:

ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

California Proposition 8, a law that is identical to one that was declared as unconstitutional, was passed by a narrow margin. There is a slim chance that it will not go through when the absentee ballots are counted, in California the absentee ballots tend to be more liberal or progressive than conservative, we will see…

If Proposition 8 should pass, there is a question that I have about the constitutionality of it as follows. Last May I wrote a blog entry titled “Same-sex Marriage & the Conservative Right” where I mentioned the lack of difference between previous Proposition 22 which put the exact same text into the California Family Code as Proposition 8 puts into the California Constitution.

The California Supreme Court threw the Family Code law out since they determined that it violated the “Equal Protection” clause of the State Constitution. So my question becomes this, does inserting it into the Constitution make it constitutional since it still violates the “Equal Protection” clause? Some would say yes, but I wonder about what challenges could be made since this text was already determined to be unconstitutional. It’s one of those legal questions that make some lawyers go hmmmm……

The other aspect of Proposition 8 was the campaign that was used to get voters to go along with it. I would have expected the usual “restore traditional marriage” ads of the past, but I did not see one pro-8 ad that dealt with anything other than same-sex marriage being taught in schools. If you did not read anything else about the proposition, one might have thought that Proposition 8 was about educational curriculum.

The initial ad discussed that in Massachusetts a teacher used a book, showing one called “King & King”, and when some parents balked they were told that they had no right to protest the curriculum or to pull there child out of class.

The case itself, Parker v. Hurley, the premise was that they were not notified of materials they found offensive; from the brief:

In January 2005, when Jacob Parker ("Jacob") was in kindergarten, he brought home a "Diversity Book Bag." This included a picture book, Who's in a Family?, which depicted different families, including single-parent families, an extended family, interracial families, animal families, a family without children, and -- to the concern of the Parkers -- a family with two dads and a family with two moms. The book concludes by answering the question, "Who's in a family?": "The people who love you the most!" The book says nothing about marriage.

Where this case fell apart legally was that the law they sued under to block this requires notification and an opportunity to exempt their children from "curriculum which primarily involves human sexual education or human sexuality issues." This has been interpreted as sex education and other related classes. The subject of the class was "what makes a family" which the courts determined did not qualify under this law.

This is not how the case was presented in the advertising for the pro-8 position. Sadly, this is hardly the exception but has started to become the rule as of late. Another good example of this is the so-called Texas Sodomy case where you here the far-right saying that sodomy is now legal in the State of Texas.

If one actually looks into the case, you find that sodomy has always been legal in the State of Texas if you are a heterosexual couple and the law that was challenged and eventually dismissed was only making it criminal for same-sex couples.

I sometimes wonder when we will start requiring political campaigns to actually be direct and honest to the subject. I mean sure there will be some mention of same-sex marriage in schools when it becomes legal, but the proposition has nothing to do with education.

Proposition 4:

WAITING PERIOD AND PARENTAL NOTIFICATION BEFORE TERMINATION OF MINOR’S PREGNANCY.
INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

This is a situation that required much thought to decide on my vote.

What made this so tough for me was that where there is a certain validity to the idea that not all families are positive experiences for a young girl and it may be difficult for her to discuss an unwanted pregnancy with her family, I also wonder just how much of a right to information the parents have?

In this country, we tend to hold parents as the responsible parties for the actions of their minor children. If a child vandalizes a neighbors property, the parents are the ones who are obligated to reimburse the damages. In some places, if a student does not go to school, the parent can be fined for the truancy.

If we are going to hold parents accountable for the actions of their children, how can we expect them to do this when we keep denying their right to know what their child is doing under the auspices of "right to privacy" for said minor?

How I voted is between myself and the booth, but this was something that made me think.

In case you don't live in California, Proposition 4 did not pass by a 52% to 47% margin.