I read in a forum today, an entry that a man serving in the military left. He has just gotten back from Iraq and here (in a nut shell) is what he said about same sex marriage: I just got back from Iraq. I fought for Americans’ freedom and rights. I don’t think anyone should be deprived of the rights that I have fought for. I did not fight for them so everyone wouldn’t have them.
I was truly inspired and emailed him telling him what a great person he is.
However, the sad thing is that most people don’t think like this. We live in a society where republican heterosexual caucasian males often think they dominate. Anything that jeopardizes this domination i.e. powerful women, successful black men, homosexual relationships they are against. Why on earth can America not progress from this puritanical thinking? Why can’t people read what’s REALLY in the bible and that is LOVE THY NEIGHBOR and THOU SHALT NOT JUDGE.
I agree, Christian ceremony weddings are not for homosexual relationships ONLY because in the bible marriage is defined as a man and a woman. However, I DO believe that homosexual people CAN be saved, and many are and will NOT go to Hell. I think this is a misconception that runs like water through the south. No where in the bible does it say that homosexual people go to Hell. Now, it does say that those that reject Christ will. Being homosexual is NOT rejecting Christ though. So what is with this backwards thinking of let’s treat all homosexuals like they are aliens?
I would like to defend myself as a raging liberal in the south and I would like to defend everyone else who has ever felt alienated by this narrowmindedness,including homosexual people. When are we going to see that all people deserve to be treated with the same respect? When are we going to learn that who someone sleeps with is no one’s business but their own and their partner’s? When are we going to STOP telling people they are going to Hell (when we commit sins ourselves every day) and START witnessing? Telling someone that they are going to hell based soley on one or two sins i.e. homosexuality, drinking, adultery,etc. (unless rejection of Christ) is NOT witnessing. In my opinion, it is hippocritical to judge someone for their sins because for every sin YOU judge, you commit at least two. One being the sins you commit in daily life that you may or may not notice and the other being judgement. I would like to know what is worse, being judgemental and automatically assuming a person is not a Christian based soley on their political affiliation or my minding my own business and not verbally attacking someone for having an abortion? I don’t like abortion, I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea but I’m sorry I can not bring myself to judge someone because she has made a decision that I may not make for myself. People don’t realize how awful life can be when everywhere you go you get judged over and over again by everyone you know based on one or two aspects of your life. I don’t talk politics in public unless I am with someone that I know feels the same way, I don’t feel bad about posting blogs about it because if you are offended in any way you don’t HAVE to keep reading, and well you didn’t have to start reading in the first place. I don’t ever want to make anyone feel as alienated as I have felt. And I have been given this treatment only because I refuse to lie about who I am. I will never say I am someone I am not and I will never just “not talk about it” if someone asks me my political affiliation. I am the kind of person that will bind over backwards for my friends, I care about people and try my hardest to be a good person yet the mere fact that I am a democrat is enough for people to treat me like I am unhuman. I have heard my “friends” say some of the harshest things to me, like coming to MY house and trash mouthing democrats, while I keep my mouth shut because I am determined to be the better person. One of the most painful things to hear is when people refer to democrats as “the liberals” the term sounds completely unhuman to me. It is as if they are isolating democrats from human beings. Another thing that makes me cringe to hear is “the gays” this makes them sound like a flock of birds that are about to swoop down and attack us all with their magical gay powers. They are humans, you know. Like real live humans, they have blood too by the way, and when people say things like “faggot” “queer” “homo” and “the gays” It hurts their feelings so please think before you talk because no one deserves to be mistreated no matter how “wrong” some of you may think being gay is. As wrong as you think homosexuality is, that’s how wrong I think judgement is. Why can’t people just leave it alone? Why can’t people just ignore it when someone says they are gay? What is it inside of them that turns them into monsters and makes them lash out on a lifestyle that doesn’t even concern them? I just dont understand why some people feel like it’s their business to harrass someone because of their lifestyle.
That’s my rant. If it offended you sorry, but just think of all the people that have been harrassed for this crap, I guarantee you that offended them more.
The South Needs a Revolution.
October 11, 2008
This is completely similiar to all my other posts but for any oppressed female in the south, you understand my frustration.
I had lunch with a coworker last night, it was fantastic. She’s not from Alabama which explains why I get along with her. Now that I think about it, the girls I get along with most aren’t from Alabama but anyways, she is as confused as I am about the issue of politics in the south.
It’s almost like an epidemic, really. Ever since I was seventeen I thought that I was a bad person for being a democrat in the south. I’m tired of it. I don’t think people realize how big of an issue this is. In the south, women are literally taught from the time they are born that they are to get married and bear children. This mostly results in girls that get married the second they get out of high school and start pushing out babies. This thought horrifies me, of course if I had a child now I would hardly be considered a very young mother but still the thought of being a mother at (nearly) 22-years-old scares me.
Mind you that I, myself, was not raised to believe that I should be a good wife and a mother. My mom taught me the opposite actually, she always said to never put myself in the situation where I would be dependent on a man. I took her advice and the older I get the happier I am about that decision. I am now in a relationship with a man that knows 100% that I do not NEED him for financial and emotional survival and that I am merely with him out of genuine love. It relieves me because our relationship is in a position to where if we got married it would not be based on financial benefits it would honestly be based on true love for each other and the desire to spend the rest of our lives together.
But back to oppression, women are also shoved in churches lead by pastors that preach that being a republican is the only way to salvation. It’s completely bizarre to me. These aren’t all churches, just a certain denomination that I would rather not name so if you are a preacher, please don’t get offended I don’t mean that all preachers preach this I know several that don’t. Some of these preachers also preach in a judgmental way towards people, most popularly homosexuals and pro-choice people. I was never raised to think this way. It is beyond me that people think that republican Christians are the only ones going to heaven. I’ve never met a northern republican so I don’t know the difference in varying regions, all I know is the republicans in the south, and they can be scary.
I recently got into a heated discussion with someone I went to high school with. She pretty much said that Barack Obama could not be a Christian because he was progay marriage and pro abortion. This upset me, the most common misconception about democrats is that we run around promoting gay marriage and telling girls to have abortions. What we mean by prochoice is we don’t think it’s OUR right to tell someone what to do with her body and we don’t think it’s OUR right to judge someone based on a decision she made. As for progay marriage, we want everyone to have equal rights. How is that bad? Not necessarily Chrisitian wedding ceremonies that are seen as completely equal to a heterosexual marriage, but a union between a homosexual couple. The only reason I am against a Christian wedding ceremony for a homosexual couple is because the bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman. I see nothing wrong with a civil marriage in homosexual couples. No one, no one deserves unequal treatment.
The older I get, the more I realize that I am the ultimate nightmare for a republican male Alabamian. Apparently I am a bit of a radical. I don’t see it, all I see is that I will NEVER deny who I am. I will never say I am something I am not and if I see someone being mistreated I won’t keep my mouth shut. I stand up for myself and for others as well. For this, I am often called a feminist. I think this is funny because what oppressive men really mean by “feminist” is “she has an opinion.”
I don’t understand women that sacrifice their happiness for a man. Happiness is one of the most precious things a person can possess. I have always seen it more valuable than love. One can be in a relationship and “love” someone but be completely miserable. Nothing is more cumbersome than depression.
So why all this oppression in the south? I have no idea. Women are shoved in churches that preach to them that the only way they will live God’s will is by voting republican and submitting completely to their husband. I understand the union of a marriage but no where does it say that the wife must be so submissive that she is stomped all over by her husband. This message of “the submissive wife” has been completely warped. It is to the point where it appears that some men are almost afraid of women, especially the women that speak their minds. The submissive wife the bible speaks of, in my eyes, is a woman that loves her husband and sees him as the head of the house and takes care of him. Yes she answers to him, but she does not allow herself to be his personal doormat or emotional punching bag. In return he is to care for her and see her as his companion.
My favorite writer in the bible is Paul. He always writes in a way that treats men and women equal. What is often overlooked about the bible is the fact that in the time it was written, women were seen as material posessions. Just because one writer may have written in a way that makes women appear inferior to men DOES NOT mean that God views women this way. It simply means the writer did and these views are reflected in the society he lived in.
The longer I stay here, the more I see I don’t fit. I become disgusted whenever a girl tells me she just wants to get married and have babies. I understand that procreation is important but I don’t think it is the reason why women exist. I’m sorry I don’t believe the ONLY reason God put me here was to get married and have children. I don’t even like kids. At the bear minimum he put me here to rescue a handful of rats from being snake food.
My heart really goes out to any girl or woman reading this that thinks her only purpose in life is to be some guy’s doormat. It’s not. No one should ever feel financially dependent on someone else. Just remember you don’t NEED about 3/4 of the things society makes us think we do but what you do NEED is happiness. It’s ok to be selfish sometimes and it’s a lot better than waking up when you’re in your fifties and realizing that you’ve spent the past thirty years with someone that makes you miserable, doesn’t understand and would never want you to branch out past his arm’s length. So stand up for yourself, my mother always taught me than a man will only treat you the way you LET him. Afraid of being alone? Forget about it, take it from someone who was in an emotionally abusive relationship for 2 years, being alone in GREAT compared to being unhappy. The feeling of moping around in depression trying to make the best of a horrid situation is no way to live. Thinking you are STUCK in an unhappy situation is no way to live either. There is always a way out and it is never as bad as you think it is. It took every ounce of strength in me to get out of that oppressive relationship but I dug inside of me and found gumption, something that I consider to be the result of self-respect and pride. Sometimes you have to play the role of your own best friend. Lord knows I’ve done that for years. If you saw one of your friends being completely miserable you would be there for her right? You would do everything you could to keep her happy and you would want her to eliminate herself from the source of her unhappiness. You can do that for yourself. I was so afraid of the pain I would feel by ending that relationship until one day when I realized I was so miserable that if I ended it with that guy worst case scenario–I would be miserable. Well I already was and the latter form of misery is temporary. If I kept myself away from him the pain would go away, well if I stayed with him he would continue to plague my happiness.
There is nothing, NOTHING, worst than someone surrendering his or her happiness, freedom, life to allowing someone to make him or her unhappy and I would bet that 1 in 3 people do that.
Help Me Make A Difference!
October 5, 2008
For those of you that met Louie and Artie you probably fell in love with them, they were amazing rats that only wanted to make the people around them happy. They were full of personality and brought so much joy into my family’s lives. You might also know where I bought them from, PetSmart.
When I first got them I noticed they had runny noses and sneezed an awful lot, an indication of respiratory illnesses. I ignored it because the box said every animal was individually checked by a vet.
As they got older I noticed other things, Louie had kink in his tail, this is a sign of being inbred. For those of you that dont know this, being inbred is terrible for rodents because it makes them subject to tumors and other deadly illnesses. At this point I started to wonder how my rats could be so young but have respiratory illnesses and a kinked tail.
They died a week ago, they were only 1 year and 4 months old meaning they died approximately 1 year sooner than they were supposed to. Cause of death: Louie developed pneumonia from respiratory illness, the vet explained to me that a rare percentage of animals develop pneumonia from respiratory viruses. Artie died from complications of the virus. Little Fox, who was purchased at an independent pet store is healthy as a horse.
Like a good petowner, I skipped out on class and rushed Louie to the vet where I dropped about 80 bucks for his exam, shot and two rxs of baytril for him and Artie. The vet was so concerned for Louie that he wanted to put him in an oxygen tent over night for an additional 40 dollars. Louie died just 2 hours later, Artie died 3 days later.
I began to link their illnesses with the source and found some HORRIFIC evidence of PetSmart’s suppliers. I had suspicions that these rats were taken from pet mills but what I discovered was far worse than any of us could imagine.
http://www.petsmartcruelty.com/
Though the video is heart breaking I ask that you please watch it. I did, and it was very hard for me since this is where my rats came from and this is how they were treated.
We can make a difference though, and I am going to try my best to get everyone interested. Please stop shopping at PetSmart, I know it’s hard especially in small cities but we have to put an end to this. Buy your pet supplies at places like Critters, Target and Picket’s if you need to know where any of these places are please email me. Especially Critters, they get their animals from breeders who love their animals very much and take good care of them. They don’t have much but Im sure if you ask, they will be able to special order supplies for you.
Please help me make a difference, I dont want this to happen to ANY animal and this has to be stopped before more animals and pet owners go through what Little Fox, me and my family have gone through these past couple of weeks.
