“During my lifetime I have seen a significant deterioration in the respect accorded to religion in our public life, and I believe that the vitality of religious freedom is in danger of being weakened accordingly,” Oaks said. “Atheists and others would intimidate persons with religious-based points of view from influencing or making the laws of their state or nation.”\
That’s a quote from LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks that I found in this lovely article from the Salt Lake Tribune via this post on blurbomat. In a speech given at BYU Idaho, Oaks said:\
bq. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation. (emphasis mine)\
The “incidents” you speak about are isolated and rare, especially when compared to the violence and intimidation inflicted on the gay community by supposed people of “faith”.\
Your two statements are connected, Elder Oaks, but not in the way you think. Why have we lost respect for religion in public life? Why have we lost respect for religious leaders of most denominations? Because they say blatantly stupid things in public and then stand behind them. They ignore Christ’s teachings and support persecuting the different, weak and those in the minority. They incite hatred, persecution, inequality and show no empathy. They use phrases like “alleged civil rights”. I don’t understand the Church’s support for Prop 8 at all. It’s hypocritical when you look at our history as a people. The early members of the Church were actually persecuted for their beliefs – tarred and feathered, shot on sight and driven across the country – not yelled at or protested against. Why? Because they were different. Because they believed in a different interpretation of marriage than the majority of the country. Does that mean the early Saints were wrong? Does that mean that outlawing that form of marriage was just or right?\
No\
It wasn’t right then, and it’s not right now for the majority to inflict its imperfect morality on the beliefs of others – especially when those beliefs, those claims of rights, have absolutely no impact on the rights of others. Has the entire church forgotten the second great commandment the Savior gave, to “love thy neighbor as thyself”? If it wasn’t right for the government to outlaw polygamy, then it’s not right now to outlaw gay marriage. That’s showing a shocking lack of empathy.\
And you expect people not to be angry when faced with your hypocrisy – with your persecution of the different? You claim that people who want to deny others their right to the pursuit of happiness are being persecuted by the very same people you’re persecuting? And then, to top it off, you equate the fight against your campaign against others’ rights to the fight for civil rights by a truly oppressed minority? Divinely inspired lunacy is the best thing I can think of to say about it.\
I would have been fine if the Church had said nothing. But, the Church asked members to donate to Prop 8 organizations and donated an unknown sum of money itself. That support is why I stopped going to church – and you’re not making me doubt my decision, Elder Oaks.
Category: family
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A Divinely Inspired Lack of Historical Perspective
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We Were on Morning Edition!
We were on Morning Edition today! You can read the transcript or listen to the story on the site. It’s very exciting, and the story’s great too. I think the artist they interviewed has a pretty typical reaction when people first hear about what we do. The comments on the article, too, are fairly typical.\
A lot of people think it’s the “death of art” or “homogenizing the music industry”, what we do. I think that’s silly. There’s so much music out there, and the labels do a horrible job of picking the good stuff. We’re trying to fix the system, not replace the whole thing or remove “art”. We’re trying to bring the music that the labels will never showcase out from the “masses” of mediocre stuff out there. Ours is just one approach, but I think it scales and is less prone to gaming than crowdsourcing or the current label approach of blind hit or miss picks by a very small group of kingmakers. If you really look at how “hits” get made today, it’s pretty disgusting. Art in popular radio is already dead. We’re trying to bring the art back by showcasing the things that should be played, not regurgitating the same old stuff the labels will to be hits with their gigantic marketing budgets. -
Max’s Karate Graduation
It’s a big weekend for Max. He got his yellow belt last night, and it’s his 10th birthday on Sunday! Check out all the pics in the set on Flickr\
Also, my first blog post for The South is up! They asked real nice, and I’ll be posting geeky bits there every couple of weeks. -
Max
I’ve been sick the last couple of weeks and haven’t done anything other than the bare minimum to keep the household functioning. Sadly, blogging does not fall into the priority chores list. I did have to pop in to say, “Max made yellow belt in karate!” YAY for him. Hopefully Kevin will post pics soon from the graduation. Also, Max received all A’s on his first report card. Double YAY!\
Max’s 10th birthday is tomorrow, and hopefully Kevin or I will post about how awesome Max continues to be. Until then, just take my word for it.\
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Maybe next time I’ll post the good things
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Christmas in Mississippi 2006\
I want to complain some more about Max’s school. All of my complaints are sort of minor, but things I find annoying.\
I’ll just refer you to the post below to see my traffic-jam rant.\
The clubs have switched times from after school to the last 45 minutes of school. This happens to overlap with Max’s Gifted class. BOOOOOOOOOO. I really appreciate what Max learns in Gifted, but is that more important than what he could learn in The Philosophy and Art Club? The Robotics Club? Or the fun, friends, and self-esteem he could gain in Chorus?\
The parking lot is set up so that you have to walk a couple of hundred feet to get into the school, even though you can park a mere 10 feet from the building. It’s just a badly thought out design. One time when I needed to pick up Max from school because he was sick, he was too weak to make it to the car. 🙁 I left him at the curb and brought the car to him. Poor guy. That made me grumble for awhile. Actually, I grumble every time I have to go to the school when I see how badly it’s designed.\
Max has Gifted five days a week, where he is pulled from his regular classroom. The regular class is, of course, continuing their lessons. Last year Max missed Math. Everyday. No wonder he got his lowest grade in Math, claims it’s hard and is his least favorite subject. Ugh. This is the same problem that kids in ESL and other pull-out programs face. I think I need to talk with someone at the school about this.\
There is a club that is only open to girls- WTH? Discrimination! Discrimination! It’s a robotics club. I guess girls are still considered “behind” when it comes to this sort of thing.\
ETA- The Gifted teacher is canceling Gifted classes on Mondays and Fridays to accommodate kids joining clubs. Yea, that’s the solution. Oy. -
Bullet points!
- Max has started reading this blog (hi, Max!) so I need to stop with the adult or subversive posts. I’m not sure what else there is to write, ha. I haven’t been feeling ranty lately which is a good thing given my new posting restrictions. The Hofstra case really has me irked though.
- Max has been settling well in the 4th grade. He is still in the Art and Philosophy Club and is trying out for chorus. (What normal elementary school requires tryouts?) We also try to make time for karate twice a week. Later in the year, he will add Robotics Club. So many cool new opportunities! We decided to skip soccer at the Y, heh.
- I still spend 30-45 minutes each day getting my kids to and from school, most of which is spent in the parent-created traffic jam. The system is ridiculous. I freely admit to adding to the problem. I don’t want to have my kids ride the bus in the morning because pick up time is 55 minutes before school starts. Considering how late school gets out and how busy Max is afterward, he could definitely use that time more advantageously at home (usually sleeping).
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Taking the Boys to Atlanta
Max’s Blue Man Group Audition from Kevin Lawver on Vimeo.
The boys and I went to Atlanta last weekend to hang out with my pal David and go to the Georgia Aquarium. We stayed in a hotel right downtown, went to the Children’s Museum, ate at Legal Seafood, went swimming, watched a movie and had a lot of fun. The pictures are here and there are some more videos to come.
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Brian story
Brian’s favorite thing in the whole world to play with is “finger friends.” Those are the little people that are made when you make a walking motion with your hand, making your fingers act as the moving legs. Get it? Luckily, Brian can take his finger friends with him where ever he goes. Even though I packed a bunch of toys and activities for the plane ride over the summer, Brian mostly played with finger friends (and ate candy, but that is a story for another day). Now that Brian is school, he plays with finger friends when he has recess or a few minutes of down time. He has recently been putting sand in his pocket during recess so he could play ‘desert finger friends’ while waiting in line to be picked up.\
I don’t really have anything to say about this new discovery. 🙂 -
News of the Mundane
(Exciting title, right?)\
Last week in Virginia, I burned the tip of my index finger while making a craft with a hot glue gun. It became a normal blister, with a squooshy, liquidy middle. It hurt immediately, so I stuck ice on it all night. By the next morning, it stopped throbbing but would hurt if I bumped it. It stayed like that for a few days and then slowly formed a hard brown cover. The liquid was reabsorbed into my skin and the pain went away. Now it looks and feels like a small piece of chocolate jellybean has been superglued to the tip of my finger. It’s weird. Weird, I tell you! I keep making jokes that I have leprosy or the plague. I just find this very odd and had to share. Aren’t you glad I did?\
My mother-in-law was tickled with my craft, btw, making it all worth it.\
Have a great Tuesday, everyone! -
Kevin’s posted more pics, yay!
On the last day in Virginia, we prettied the kids up and sent them off to the mall to get their picture taken together. It came out really cute. Then Tim, Kevin and Grandpa Larry took the kids to the Air and Space Museum. Babba finagled the day into a flight theme and talked Grandpa into putting on his old flight suit and helmet. Brian made him pretend to be Darth Granpda. (Yea, I don’t know.) The kids had fun! In some of the pics, I can’t tell the difference between Max and Brian!! Big kudos to Grandpa for being able to get into his flight suit after more than a decade of retirement. :)\
Our visit to Virginia was short, but we packed in lots of fun and chatting time. Everyone got to play with the baby, meet the new girlfriend, and start planning for Thanksgiving, yay.\
In the next set of pics: Mississippi madness!
