Come away with me today, everything should be okay.

After reading several different posts about the LDS (and many other conservative Christian) churches response and actions based on Proposition 8 I have felt really thankful to be a part of the faith community I am currently in.



Maybe Proposition 8 has been less on my radar than it should be. I know that I was stoked when gay marriage was legalized in the state because it seems to me like it's way over due.



But maybe I also choose not to think about it because I remember when I was in college one of the professors I respected the most (and still have a relationship/friendship) with three years after college graduation tried to convince his classes that gay marriage should not be legalized by the government because it opened up doors to all kinds of evils. I remember him saying on numerous occasion that if the state sanctioned man and man or woman and woman marriage what would keep it from also sanctioned man and rooster or man and child marriages?

And I can't exactly pin point how I felt about this at the time or how I responded, but maybe I thought that he had a point, and maybe I didn't. I am not sure, but I am sure that it is this kind of thinking (among other things) that caused me to run quickly in the other direction from evangelical Christianity. I think what strikes me the hardest about it is the unwillingness to respect and more so accept the life choices of mature adult people. One thing that I struggle with so much in religion is the boxed in worldview is tends to give people- the worldview that says that it's my way or no way, and I cannot respect or accept that people are really happy outside of my way because even if they think they are happy now, in eternity they will be damned. To me religion seems to be more of a focus on the after death than there here and now, I am am living now, so that's what I want to focus on.



Blegh I feel like I could verbally vomit a lot about religion and the use of church as a political machine. I could say yes I know there are exceptions in all cases. I realize that not all conservative Christian places of worship are talking about these issues from the pulpit, but I think I just have little tolerance for it because if I was put in that situation as a member of a congregation I would just leave.

Because of John's post about this I have thought a lot about what I could do to 'support and validate' those who are struggling within Conservative Christian congregations and while I feel like holding up signs and pointing out the close-mindedness of these institutions could at least send a message, I feel more inclined to just flee in the other direction (like I already have) and to take struggling people with me to the Quaker meeting. I mean I say this with much sarcasm, and I totally support and respect those who fight closed-mindedness from within their institutions, but I find this kind of thing totally frustrating- and it makes me feel pretty helpless.

So kudos to the Supreme Court for just confirming America is in the state that it is currently in.

I'm headed over to Walmart right to get me my firearm.
I mean, I have to be a little smart and say that I understand that the Supreme Courts decision doesn't immediately mean that guns are okay anywhere, but I also understand that the United States Government just made a huge statement that it pro-guns, and that makes my stomach turn.

It seems like we could look very simply at countries who are less supportive of firearms and see that there violence level seems to be slightly (?) lower than ours.I can't go on here because I don't have all the statistic and intellect to spew out to you at the moment.

I'm just kind of angry and I don't feel proud to be an American at all.

Yep. Now I am 24. (And by the way I had a very nice Birthday and was showered by fun gifts, lots of friends, and even a song just for me)

I'd like to say something very profound about politics and the election, but I just feel nervous about it at this point, and that is none too elegant of a thing. I voted a week ago at the early voting at John Wayne Airport. I voted for Obama and even though I don't love her all that much, I have to say that if Hillary wins it would not be my first choice, but I just want a Dem in office. (I am sorry to sound partisan)

Also yesterday I lost my ipod. Also not very profound but it just sucks and I am very unhappy with myself for doing it.

I think that's all, I just wanted to say I alive, 24, voted, and lost my ipod.

Maybe tomorrow I will be more inspired.

Two people have asked me for a reaction to the victory of Obama and the Iowa caucus, and I have responded with little fervor and energy in my answer. I don't know. I like him, I am glad he won. Not much else I really care to add. I don't insert nasty comments about our former first lady or talk about issues that are important to me.

I have to be honest. NPR has been my biggest (almost only) source for election news, and I think I just realized why that is (besides being a little busy lately). If you asked me if I was a political person the answer would be- very much so. But at the same time the experience I had in the last election has left me politically detached.

I will set the scene for you. I am a senior in college, attending a program through an organization called the Christian College Coalition. I live in Washington D.C. with 40 other students from various Christian Colleges around the nation. I am currently interning in the office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Department of Homeland Security (still not really sure what their function is.) I am pretty much surrounded by very conservative students and colleagues. The moral majority are my roommates and there is a lot of Kerry bashing and such, without a lot of room for conversation. There is more of the I am right, and you are stupid thing going on, and I learn to keep my mouth shut if I am not ready for a huge fight.

I am told that I will be required to campaign for a canidate in some manner. I choose Kerry because I have seen where our country has been for the last four years, and don't want it to stay going in the same election. You need to remember when reading this that this is the first presidential election that I was eligible to vote in, and I am fully involved; cold calling people to encourage them to vote, standing on the Pennsylvania roadside holding up signs for John Kerry. I am trying to grapple with my faith andf politics, and understand how to be a progressive Christian. I am trying to figure out who Christ is in light of all the shit that is happening in my country- not to mention the world.

I am set on this hope of having someone new to make better choices. I don't know if he will be amazing, but I know he will be different. And then, among the moral majority I hear the annoucement being made. Fellow students get chastised because they are leaving class to go to the White House to see the acceptance speech. I 'd like to crawl in a hole (or at least my bottom bunk) and sleep for the rest of the day, but I am forced to go to class with many people who are gloating all around me.

On November 3rd, 2004 I write:

My heart is broken. I did not think it would be this hard, or that I would be so emotionally charged, but I am. I am afraid for America. I feel sick.
Please God don't let me lost my inspiration and purpose. I need you now, and so does this country. I will continue to be driven by hope and emotion, and feeling with my generation. and passion. and hope maybe, but it all seems to bleak right now. so bleak and so dark. how did it come to this.

I wore black for a week- which is funny because you don't stand out all too much when you are wearing black in the capital.

Needless to say my first presidential election was not a good experience. You can chock it up to my surroundings or the event itself, and I am thinking that maybe as you grow up and you are politically involved you learn to deal with the disappointment of such things. But it was a hard first. And I feel hesitant about jumping head first into another one of them, and having all these hopes and expectations just to feel defeat in the end. At least this time I am more aligned with like-minded people than I was then- but at this point I am proceeding with caution when it comes to Election 2008.