Not a theocracy, thank god

wave the red, white and blue...just don't put a cross on it...or any other type of religious symbol.



what has made this country great is the diversity it promised in the constitution and the bill of rights. true, we are a work in progress because the diversity promised hasn't been realized in full...but the promise is there.

women are still working for around forty cents less for every dollar earned by men...but the promise is there and we will succeed in closing the money gap. as my sister told me once, the landlord,utility office,grocery store don't subtract the difference so i should be earning the same as any man doing comparable work. its a paraphrase,but you get the drift.



i have friends and relatives who are gay, and some would like the right to marry. not only do they want the security of being one of a couple, they also want to be able to take advantage of the legal rights of joint ownership of property, and to be able to bequeath their possessions to their spouses, just like hetero couples do...to fight for custody of children, to adopt a family, so many things.



personally, i can't conceive of being married, myself. i'm fifty eight years old, and set in my ways, who would find living with a spouse extremely difficult. but if my gay brothers and sisters want it...they should have it...and the promise is there...in the constitution and the bill of rights, we just need to attain it.



we are guaranteed the right to worship....or not...anyway we like. but there are those who would turn this country into one big church, and force us all to participate.



now, i don't have a problem with people who find comfort in churches or prayer circles if that gives them peace of mind and heart. really, i don't.



but it bugs me when its shoved down my throat.



the biggest, if not only, practitioner of this campaign to foist religion on the masses, is fundamentalist christians...not all christians, but these folks who think that because jesus works for them, its the answer for everyone else. and i wonder how often the members of these fundamentalists sects are people who are too lazy to think for themselves..just climb on a bandwagon that has catchy phrases painted on the side and follow along. maybe not realizing the path they are on is not good for everyone. but they are happy, and believe that we would be just as happy of only we were 'shown the way'



our country started because english people wanted to worship in their own way...as it turned out, it was one fanatical sect who opposed another fanatical sect...but who knew? at the time it seemed like a good idea.



then when a hardy band of men (they left the little women at home to tend the farms and fires while the guys went to philadelphia to start a new nation) decided to start a new country and in the process, decided to make religion separate from government.



when that was decided, america became a republic commonly called a democracy. NOT A THEOCRACY.



there have been slips along the way...somebody thought it would be be a good idea to put in god we trust on the money, and for awhile, before litigation set it right, there were religious homilies on school walls, and someone else thought it would be good to put 'under god' in the pledge of allegiance, but all in all, the line between religion and government is still there.



what we need to work towards is keeping it there.



defend our right to be a democracy, because a theocracy would spell disaster for this nation of people comprised of jews, muslims, moslems, catholics, methodists, etc...and the first fight we would face is which religion would the one everyone would have to recognize and follow. this alone could be the second civil war, and we haven't completely healed from the first one.



face it folks, if we dink around with the line, and possibly erase it, we loose a lot more than we gain. because if we loose the right to this most fundamental right, we are on the road to loosing it all.



hopefully, we will not allow a few to ruin it for the many. this is the first post i've done in awhile. and i will be doing another one over the weekend, to support the blogswarm that will be going on to support the rage against theocracy. i am not the greatest writer. i'm too prone to letting my emotions run away with me and have been known to write incomplete thoughts as my mind sometimes gets ahead of my fingers. my sister would no doubt say, that's what editing is for...give it some time and go back and reread it...make the changes, then publish. what, does she think i'm as talented as she is?!? au contrair. but i do have strong opinions, and now a place to put 'em. and this is so cool.