Non-Papal Bull

As I witness a lame duck administration of supposed Fiscal Conservatives embrace the most overtly Socialist takeovers of private industry alongside the Liberal legislature and incoming administration, I really hang my head in shame.  Freedom is being taken, and the government perpetrating these criminal usurpations of power is being silently approved by generations that have embraced the current human condition.  In the study of Humanity, an observor would never be able to find a situation like today that has existed before.  Improvements in communication technology have virtually destroyed the individual and grouped us into a collective.  One hundred years ago, the only individuals who were debating a global poverty debate were wealthy dynastic liberals in the Northeast United States.  They could afford to not focus on the basic insurance of their liberties, because monitarily, they were set and were not preoccupied with the day-to-day struggle of living free.  Now, even those who are in poverty in this country have the opportunity to connect themselves up to a PC and can become a consumer and critic. 

Is consumerism freedom?  Frankly, the evil of consumerism sickens me.  What sickens me more is that even I am guilty of this evil.  Everyone is.  I guess I just missed the clause in some obscure section of the US Constitution that said that you are entitled to everything you want.  If someone can show it to me, please direct me to it.  The only thing that gives me some sort of sollace in my personal consumerism is that I am working to earn a wage and not buying beyond my means.  What debts I do have, I am paying back.  I am working to ensure that I have the ability to purchase a home one day.  I just do not understand the mindset of expecting healthcare, a home, transportation, clothing, and food out of a government that was NOT set up to give you any of those things.  Our government was set up to ensure that the individual’s innate rights are not infringed upon by it or any other party.

It is in that spirit that I approach the main topic of this particular article.  California’s Proposition 8 was recently passed.  Although, it will probably be litigated away in the near future, I have trouble either damning or endorsing this measure.  Personally, I am a heterosexual and find nothing at all attractive with the male anatomy of Homo erectus.  However, I do not discount that there are people who are generally attracted to people of their own sex.  When looking at the issue from my moral goggles, I have observed in scripture (specifically of the Judeo-Christian tradition) that homosexuality is a sin.  These sentiments are expressed in both the Old and New Testaments.  As a professed Christian, it would hold constant that I adopt these beliefs and that I would see homosexual acts as a sin against God.  However, I hold no malice towards homosexuals for the simple reason that I am no person to realistically judge another.  Also, it really does not affect my world if someone is homosexual.  Some see it as impeding on humanity’s morality.  Jesus also calls humanity to be loving towards all, so I do not think that I can honestly descriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.  I think that’s what should be focused on when the “Religious Right” addresses an issue like Gay Marriage.  Does it show Jesus’s love to discrimate against them?  I don’t think so.  Also, as a Libertarian, I have have adopted a laissez faire attitude.  I am not a homosexual, but if one of my future children happens to be, I will not love that child less and I would like them to have the option to live their life with the rights that their mother and I have been able to enjoy.  Do I think that Civil Unions are the same thing as a Civil Marriage?  No, I think offering the institution is a cop out unless you institute that all State arrangements of binding two people together are all classified as a Civil Union.  If a two people want to enjoy the status of being mutually exclusive partners, no matter their sexual orientations, and all rights that they are entitled to through that action, then by all means they should be allowed.  In this way, I am opposed to defining Marriage as stated in California’s Proposition 8.

On the other side of this argument, I do support the Constitutional right of Californians to excersise their own judgment on the issue.  If the State’s constituents decide to support Proposition 8, I can only say that by majority voting standards, California has made Gay Marriage an institution that will not exist in their State.  I myself believe that the Marriage issue is something that should be handled by State to State referrendums.  If a State’s constituency chooses to support it, then it is legal in that State.  If the State’s constituency chooses not to support it, then it is not legal.  In this way, I am in support of the voters of California’s wishes to be their law.

I guess this will be the best time for me to address the current controversies that have gripped the The Episcopal Church of the United States of America.  In the matter of consecrating homosexual marriage inside the Church, the document that we profess as scripture forbids homosexuality, so I can only guess that Gay Marriage would also get the axe.  Additionally, if a congregation, convocation, or diocese decides to support an issue that the larger Anglican Communion does not profess, then that entity should not be included in the Communion.  This also works with the consecration of an open and practicing homosexual taking up positions in Clerical Ministry.  As a part of the vows a priest or bishop takes, the candidate is asked to renounce all known sins.  If you renounce something, you do not continue to do it.  If I were to become part of the Clergy of the Episcopal Church, I would have to renounce some of my practices and I would also keep my word once I took that oath.  I do not support someone who takes an oath that is supposed to be accountable between themselves and God and then committing a sin that is explicitly stated in both Testaments that they believe to be the scripture upon which our understanding of the Divine is built.

In summary, I support Civil Gay Marriage and the right of a State’s Voters to reject it if they want to.  If you are upset about Californians taking this step, move to a State that is more tolerant.  Here is an even more lurid suggestion.  Why not work for Universal Freedom through limited Government interference in our lives and thusly a limited role for the US Government as prescribed in the Constitution?  How tempting is that?

I finished a work of fiction last night entitled “The Last Templar”.  I had been eyeing this book for a good while.  I had seen it at Barnes & Noble when it came out in hardback and was intrigued.  I wondered to myself if it was a Dan Brown knock off?  Well, while awaiting a Chocolate-Banana Vivanno at a Starbucks inside a Farm Fresh, I saw the paperback version and indulged in the $6.50 book. 

I have been reading on it off and on for about a month and a half and finished it last night.  The plot was interesting, but predictable.  It generally followed the tone of constant urgency to solve the mystery before the protagonists.  There is a romance sub-plot, a shocking revelation that could bring down Chrisendom, and a hell-bent Vatican official trying to cover it all up.  In the end, the protagonists (and the reader) find out the secret that Templars discovered during their nine years of seclusion under Al-Asqa Mosque in the legendary King Solomon’s Stables, but the evidence of that secret which could destroy the Christian Mythos are destroyed in the end.

It differed from Mr. Brown’s Langdon series by making the female character the brainy protagonist and the male the one dealing with a conflict of faith.  It also has two enemies rather than just a Church bashing book.  While an agent of the Vatican is dispatched by a Cardinal to suppress the secret, there is also a fallen man from academia who has lost all scruples and is unwavering in his wish to bring down the Church.  It was interesting to me that the author chose to also cast an appraising eye over the world of academia.  I liked the fact that not only was the concept of faith without questioning explored, but also questioning without faith.

I think we all question, but faith is what can be a rock in our lives.  Is the story of Jesus Christ partly historic and partly mythical?  As my father would say, “I wasn’t holding the light,”  so I couldn’t tell you.  I, personally, believe in this myth as history.  Do I have proof that everything happened exactly as it is stated in the canonical gospels?  No, but faith is the belief in something that you don’t have proof of.  I think the strongest thing in the gospels are a small figure in history facing down his contemporaries with a philosophy of brotherly love throughout the human race.  A message that the Templars’ last adherants passed to early Scottish Freemasons.  I’m proud to continue in that message of mutual respect and love for the different Semitic Cultures and all mankind really.

Read the book.  It is pretty fast and it will make you think.  I give it a “Decent” in my ledger.