Green Oasis

Why have I never heard of John Prine? His song, Sam Stone, breaks my heart.

There’s also a Johnny Cash cover.

Because we’re being digested by an amoral universe. Seriously.

From the tone of some of my posts over the life of this blog, you may have gotten the impression that I had completely written off the LDS church. That wasn’t entirely true—at least not most of the time. I still held a measurable amount of positive thoughts toward the organization. It does some humanitarian work. Some people find happiness there. It’s not all bad.

The fight for marriage segregation has changed that. The LDS church’s role in that fight has exhausted what dim goodwill I had toward the organization. I simply don’t feel it anymore.

I hold no malice in my heart when I say that the world would be much better off without the LDS church. What little good it does can be easily replaced. Its humanitarian efforts are mercenary. Its financial dealings opaque. Its teachings bigoted. Its happiness borne of fantasy.

I continue to esteem the Mormon people, many of whom are good people. They are compassionate tools for the church. I wish they could be free of the albatross that is the LDS church.

It seems that many of us are upset at the majority of California voters harshing the collective buzz over the Obama victory.

Today is bittersweet… Obama got elected but it looks as though Proposition 8 will pass, banning gay marriage in California. Fuck you, California. (kottke.org)

While I am disappointed, I have reason to hope. Many people are celebrating the election of the first U.S. president of African descent (and I believe the right president) and find it unbelievable that we’ve come so far in so short a time. The days of segregation and poll taxes are part of living memory.

Like them, I look back to the attitudes that surrounded me when I was a child. I remember when it was unthinkable that a person would be openly homosexual. It was an aberration, a perversion, a disease. Being openly gay was to relegate yourself to the fringes of society. I am not that old; that wasn’t so long ago. I am deeply heartened that only a slim majority of California voters hold on to their apprehensions that recognizing the innate rights of homosexual people will somehow lead to the downfall of civilization, that somehow the gayness will infect them. We’ve come a long way.

Yet we still have some maturing to do. We are not yet comfortable in giving full expression to the American ideals of equality, life, liberty, and justice for all. We’re still easing ourselves into the pool of liberal democracy. Someday, I hope we can leave the security of the shallows and strike out for open waters.

This video which shows how some people perceive the Mormon church’s involvement in the fight to discriminate against same-sex couples has been making the rounds.