Religion, same-sex marriage and one very angry man

Harvey believes, among other things, that God intended marriage to be between only man and woman, that abortion for any reason is a mortal sin, that women should be confined to cooking and bearing children and not clutter the culture by working, that only the Bible and not evolution should be taught in schools and that only white males should be eligible to run for president.

I am fascinated by the rigidity of his thought process, and in those rare moments when we argue about God and evolution it feels less like a Darrow-Bryan debate than it does like someone monologuing on the existence of an entity no one has ever seen. Only if Harvey would actually trot God out of a back room and introduce him in person to an audience of atheists would I say you're right, man, you win; there is a God.

I'm more pantheist than theist, which includes believing there is something almost godlike in the glory of rain and sunset, in love and an aqua ocean, and in little children and puppies. If there turns out to be more than one god, well that's OK too. I'll go back to being a Catholic and we can all march together to kingdom come.

Those of us appalled by Proposition 8 are not trying to interpret morality. There are human rights at stake beyond anyone's capacity to give or take away, and I believe that compassion is an emotion that acknowledges few barriers.

If guys like Harvey had their way, cultural evolution would come to a screeching halt and we would be in danger once more of outlawing interracial marriage and bowing to the archaic ecclesiastical rules that determine what is and what is not sinful.

I'm going to get Harvey's thinking on that too and then see how he feels about forbidding marriage between a man and woman with IQs lower than 75 to prevent more idiots from populating the world.

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almtz13@aol.com