I like this post and I think it makes some very valid points and is also very funny - so much so that I'm posting it here to spark some thought and maybe discussion.

I am not gay. In fact, most times, I’m not even remotely happy. So, it irks this married, quasi-grumpy, heterosexual California male when a Mulligan’s Stew of religion, intolerance, fear and politics is plopped on my table like a steaming pile of sanctimoniousness and dubbed “The Defense of Marriage Act.” I’m talking about Proposition 8, a nifty little exercise in backwards thinking that would amend the California State constitution to define marriage as something that can occur only between a man and a woman.

Am I missing something here? With this country coming apart at the seams on a myriad of levels, gay marriage is seen as a major issue? The standard line is that gay marriage threatens “the sanctity of marriage,” because - as we all know - divorce, cheating, incest and domestic violence don’t.

I believe the only threat gay marriage poses is that it may change the content of country music forever.

Now, the pro-Proposition 8 cheerleaders are your usual group of loveable misanthropes (Come on down, Focus on the Family!) but with a couple of notable exceptions. Members of the Mormon Church, their magic underwear in a twist, have funneled over $17 million into the anti-gay marriage treasure chest. The Catholic Knights of Columbus, an all-male group known for wearing funny outfits while calling themselves “Grand Knight,” “Chief Squire” and “Friar” as well as doing some amazing charitable work, has kicked in over $1 million for reasons that elude me.

The folks supporting Proposition 8 have come up with a myriad of reasons for pushing the “man-woman marriage” effort. They say that if same-sex marriage continues to be recognized in California, gay marriage will be taught in public schools. I assume that class will come before Gay Math, Gay English and Gay Geography but after the infamous Gay Recess.

Churches will be sued if they don’t perform gay marriage ceremonies. Religious adoption agencies will go broke if they only continue to grant traditional moms and dads the right to adopt. Ministers and priests who preach against same-sex marriage will be sued for hate crimes. Photographers will be sued if they refuse to take photos of gay marriage ceremonies. Doctors will be sued if they deny artificial insemination to gays. Hordes of pixies will re-arrange the sock drawers of heterosexual men, substituting sheer silk socks for those thick cotton ones you wear on the job. (I made that last one up. Could you tell?)

The proponents of Prop. 8 simply want traditional marriage to be declared the law of the land. (I can’t wait for the return of arranged marriages and dowries, can you?)

No matter how much legal and political reasoning is spewed, however, it’s pretty clear that the definition of marriage being between a man and a woman is a religious one. Period. Gay marriage threatens people’s religious beliefs…even more than pixies in the sock drawer.

That’s saying a lot.

There are a lot of folks who believe the Bible word for word…when it suits them. People who aren’t keen on gay marriage, or just gays, usually preach Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.” If you mention that, way back when, an “abomination” referred to a ritual offense (Goat herders were an abomination to the Egyptians. Pork chops were abominations to the Hebrews.), they come up with Leviticus 20:13. “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they surely will be put to death.”

So, let’s say that the Bible is true. Word for word. It’s all true. It has to be obeyed. Period. No wiggle room. If that is the case, about half of the American population will be dead from public stonings in, ohhhhh, about three or four days.

Ya, see. The Old Testament wasn’t really big on mitigating circumstances when it came to crime or, as it was known then, sin. Just a casual look at the Ten Commandments could bring down American society post haste. No lying? No adultery? No swearing? No pining for someone else’s wife or big screen TV? There goes the fabric of our nation!

In Mosaic Law, such offenses were punishable by public stoning. This has nothing to do with “The Summer of Love,” my fellow Boomers. This entails a bunch of righteous folks picking up rocks and slamming them into sinners until their sorry skulls are scrambled.

Some of the sins punishable by death were beauts. If a kid sasses his parent, he’s dead meat. Striking a parent? Ditto. A fellow marrying his mother-in-law is also doomed, although that seems redundant. If a betrothed woman is sexually assaulted and doesn’t scream, she’s up for stoning. (However, if a man rapes a virgin, his only punishment is a wedding. Hmmmm.) If a lass isn’t a virgin when married, she’s also boulder-ized. If you don’t worship the God of the Old Testament, your life gets real rocky real fast. If you work on the Sabbath? R.I.P., overtime notwithstanding.

Justice in the Old Testament was meted out with, er, gay abandon. Kids who made fun of a bald guy were eaten by bears. Promiscuous women had their noses and ears cut off, their children taken away, were stripped and burned. If a single woman had a boy out of wedlock, she might merely be shunned but the kid and his descendents were condemned to Hell.

Oh, yeah. All you country club devotees? Divorce, by implication (“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”), means you’re destined for a stoning before happy hour.

People who are Bible literalists, aside from the fact that they consider “The Flintstones” a docu-drama, tend to pick and choose their moral instruction from the Book as if they were at a salad bar. If they didn’t, most of them would be walking gravel pits. (Those who are anti-gay ANYthing, for instance, might be interested to know that the world “homosexual” didn’t appear in the Bible until about one hundred years ago. What? Did God come down with White-Out?)

What constitutes “sin” is also up for interpretation. It wasn’t a bleeding-heart liberal, for instance, who changed the Biblical commandment translation from “Thou shalt not kill” to “Thou shalt not murder.” It was someone who realized that, Holy Crap!, that “kill” stuff includes religious-fueled warfare!

When I was a kid, growing up Catholic, a mortal sin was the Big Kahuna of “no-nos.” Unless you confessed to a priest pronto, you were damned to Hell.

It was a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday. Seriously. It was also a mortal sin to take an ax and give your family forty whacks. So, when Fridays rolled around, this chubby little kid was faced with a decision. If you go the sin route, which one do you choose? I always opted for the sin that included a side of fries. It was just as damning as mass murder but much tastier.

California, for some reason, has always led the nation when it comes to quirky trends, from the sublime to the sub-moronic. We elect washed-up actors as Republican governors in a state derided as being uber-liberal by… Republicans. We promote meditation in-between Bo-tox injections. Only some of us see the irony in all that.

Proposition 8 is mean-spirited irony stoked by fear of…whatever it is we’re not. By invoking the specter of “traditional marriage” and making it the law of the land, we’re dangling one foot over the abyss of traditional inequality.

It wasn’t too long ago that inter-racial marriages were illegal. Segregation was the law of the land. Blacks weren’t considered fully human. Women weren’t allowed to vote.

All of those facets of our society also had their roots in the Bible. Not too many thinking Americans would defend them, now.

I’ve written a lot of fantasy fiction in my lifetime but, for the life of me, I can’t see how a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman threatens my marriage…unless they move next door and play loud music at 2 AM, or let their dogs poop on my front lawn or get drunk and beat the crap out of each other and toss beer bottles around at all hours. You know, stuff that gay couples might do that heterosexual couples would never dream of.

I mean, look at all those gay couples on “Cops” week after week. Uh. Oh. Never mind.

So, Californians, vote “no” on Proposition 8. The rest of America? Be on alert should a similar proposition pop up in your neck of the woods. It’s about religion. It’s about denying people equal rights. It has nothing to do with government. It has nothing to do with law.

And, to all those sanctimonious saviors of traditional values out there who feel condemnation is the cure-all for everything you see that you don’t agree with?

Here’s a Biblical quote for you. Mark 9:47. “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”

There’s no quote to advise you on what to do after you’ve run out of eyes.

I’m just sayin’.

Snow fell in London last night for the first time in October since 1934.

October snowfall: London had its first October snowfall since 1934

Snow and sleet also fell in northern Scotland and south-east England as temperatures plunged to -4C in parts of Britain.

Football matches were either postponed or abandoned at Luton, Northampton, Walsall and Wycombe because of the weather conditions.

Sky weather presenter Denise Nurse said: "It's highly unusual to have snow in October - we haven't seen October snowfall in London since 1934.

"But today will be cold, bright and frosty. Snow this afternoon will mainly affect Northern Ireland, Wales and the north of England. It'll also be breezy, feeling almost blizzard-like.

Cheers for that Sky News :o)

In 2003, a close friend of mine killed himself. This post is dedicated not to him but to us - his friends and family who continue to grieve.



I grew up in Palmerston North, home to a fair few suicides during my high school years and I watched as people all around me were affected as friends committed suicide. At the time New Zealand had something like the second highest youth suicide rate in the world and no one I knew was left unscathed. Many of us from that group can tell you of someone we know and loved who died.



We set up support groups and networks. We gathered together. And we watched as the country went into lockdown. To talk about it too much was to encourage it.



That was a time when New Zealand's suicides accounted for more death than road accidents.



We're back at that time and we're now looking at 80% of those dying over the age of 24.



I'm sick of this. 511 killed themselves between July 07 and June 08 in New Zealand. That's 511 bereaved families and friends and people who need love. That's 511 people who didn't feel the love. What are we doing wrong New Zealand? How did we get to this point?



To BR - I hate what you did that day. I hate that you felt you couldn't carry on and couldn't rely on us to carry you. A lot of people loved you and we're still hurting and missing your presence. I didn't go to your funeral - I was too scared about saying goodbye, I didn't know how to make it better and I'm not sure, five years on, I've gained any greater clarity. I really wish I had gone. I could have said goodbye. I hate that you forced us to say goodbye to you. I hate that I still cry over your death.



I've never quite worked out how to solve the problem. It's the reason I love so passionately and need people to know that I care about them. It's the reason I have a habit of wearing my heart on my sleeve. I don't want you to die and not know how much you mean to me.



If you're reading this and you don't know me - then *know* that there is someone out there that feels like this about you too.



If you feel like the world is closing in and you feel like you've lost all faith, hope and love there are people you can talk to. People who won't judge. And a God who loves unconditionally - no matter what you do, who you are, how unloved you feel.



Lifeline - 0800 543 354

Depression - 0800 111 757

Youthline - 0800 376 633; text free on 234; email talk@youthline.co.nz

Samaritans - 0800 726 666 (North Island only)



For more information take a look at the SPINZ website or Lowdown (for youth people about depression).



[Organisations listed are NZ based]



So this is me - speaking out against suicide and depression. I know this is just a blog post but for anyone who has talked to me about this you know that it's so much more than a one post topic to me.



I hate that I'm writing these words knowing that they'll make little impact and the person I cared about that  needed to read them most left this world 5 years ago. We miss you.

Today has been Blog Action Day - bloggers all over the world devoting their posts to the issue of poverty.

Important thing to remember #1:



I loved Roald Dahl books as a kid.





(This is part of a series of important things I have forgotten over time but which I must remember for the future)

I heart technology - I'm making a hobby out of exploring the future of communication and networking and thoroughly enjoying the benefits of dragging the Church Commissioners Pastoral and Closed Churches Department kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. Not that they've mastered youtube fully yet but I am determined that I will leave them with a much better idea of how they can use the internet *for good* (a brilliant phrase).

"A Bloomberg survey found that 55% of Americans thought the government should not bail out private companies with taxpayers' money even if their collapse could damage the economy, while only 31% thought it should. A Pew poll found pretty much the opposite. It all depends on how you ask the question." (The Economist, 'The Candidates Intervene', 27/09-03/10 2008, p.58).



Indeed.

Brought to you by the letters "E-C-O-N-O-M-I-S-T-.-C-O-M"

There is so much bad press about Christians and Christianity but this story is the complete opposite. This family are amazing.

From my Pastorate leader Rohan:

Would it be better if I just gave up and came home? Or just easier?



[Edited 10 minutes later - The answer is, of course, no, but sometimes giving up seems the obvious and simplest solution . . . you understand?]

Some of my favourite NZ politicians are stepping down as MPs and have given valedictory speeches over the past few days. They have done more and tried harder than the average Kiwi gives them credit for and it is sad to see them go. 

I have realised (better late than never) that to be really thankful for what you have, you have to see what you have as a good thing.While in many ways I don't like my job at all, I am thankful for the opportunities it gives me to pay off debts, to work at home, to travel around England, to spend lots of out-of-work hours with the people I care about doing things that matter to me. It is a blessing in a funny kind of way and it's taken a long time to see that. I still want another job though . . .

Summer has faded into Autumn here and while the leaves are falling off the trees, I am musing on life and the curveballs it throws. I took a walk last night while the sun went down and took some truly Autumn light photos that I love and will soon be up on my newly created Flickr account for my most pretty photos. It's purposefully only a small number of photos as it's my way of keeping track of those that I really like the most...but I digress...