Politics & Religion

So, here is the one that people will argue about - but here goes some questions to acquaint you on my views relative to the "hot" topics.

1. Abortion - for it or against it?
Without getting into the "when does life begin?" argument, let me answer this one as follows:
I would be against abortion, IF, there was adequate sex education for teenagers and young adults; if contraceptives were readily available (including the "day after" pill); and most important, if safer sex was taught as a mandatory class in high school (maybe earlier). Then, I would support banning abortions.

For those on the left that would say, well you can do all these things and you can't guarantee 100% that a pregnancy will not occur - I would respond by saying that nothing in life is a 100% guarantee except death (even taxes some people avoid.) And, life is about both risk taking and risk avoidance and sometimes you are dealt a card that you don't like and you must play the cards in your hand.

For those on the right I would say, you can't have it both ways - that is ban abortions, and not provide the other avenues (listed above) to avoid pregnancy. The right want no abortion, no sex education, and when these unwed teenage mothers wind up with babies, don't want to pay for the cost of upbringing the kid. You can either have your cake or eat it, which one is it?
Generally, there are many different contraceptive methods available and if people were educated and the information and supplies were readily available, this abortion issue, in my opinion, would most likely go away. So, I will continue to support abortion until people get real and take their head out of the sand with respect to sex.

2. Religion - I don't belong to a church, nor do I consider myself christian. With that said, I am a spiritual person and generally believe that all religions attempt to nail down what humans probably do not have the capacity to understand. Some people take scriptures literally, but, they were written a long time ago, and in such context often leads to absurd conclusions. Isn't it enough to say that these men (not women in general) attempted to describe a greater power in the context of their own times. And for those new religions, like the Mormons, isn't it really the same thing?

I am pretty much convinced that the immaculate conception never happened, so I really can't be a christian, but, I think that many of the christian traditions in today's churches are uplifting for the heart and soul. I go to the Metropolitioan Community Church here in Denver on occasion, and always come away with a good feeling in my heart. I don't know what lies ahead after death, and I am not going to spend this life obsessing over it.

3. Gay Rights - There was a beautiful speach that Julian Bond (head of the NAACP) gave at a Human Rights Campaign gathering a while back and he about summed it all up for me. Essentially, Mr. Bond said that Gay Rights are not special rights. And, that the rights (especially with respect to marriage) are unalienable rights afforded to all people in this country. Mr. Bond then went on to describe the parallels between what Africian American people fought for and what Gay people are fighting for today - equality. Mr. Bond also spoke of the early laws on the state books that banned marriage between whites and blacks, and that under such law, he would not have been able to marry his wife.

Mr. Bond heads up the NAACP - which stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I think this designation speaks for itself and demonstrates the long battle for equality for what we now call Africian Americans. Colored People, as I understand it, was a derogratory term used by racist whites, that became a term ingrained in our language, much like the word fag or queer. Black people took the term Colored People and used the words to their advantage, much like the gay community has rallied around the words queer and fag by turning the meaning into something empowering.

Today's argument by the right that somehow granting marriage equality to gay and lesbians will degrade the institution of marriage makes no sense, especially since they have never been able to articulate how this would happen - isn't the fact that over 50% of marriages (by hetrosexuals) winding up in divorce a much greater harm to the fabric of society and marriange in general, than two men or two women getting married?

I think it is a christian thing to some degree to try and tell people how to live their lives, much like the Crusades. In this day and age, who really cares? And, it would seem that to foster loving relationships is what we as a society should be striving for.

Government Spending - well, this is a tough one. As I age and get nearer to retirement age, I worry about income, if I have saved enough, and especially worry about having medical insurance. With respect to medical insurance, I think we have done a terrible job adressing this problem and it is getting worse. Sure, as long as I am employed by a good company that provides these benefits, I am fine. But, if I lose this job, I "fall off a cliff." And, in retirement, is Medicare/Medicade going to cut it for us millions of baby boomers about to hit the system?
Then, with all this stimuls spending, will the result be future inflation which will further degrade my fixed retirement annuities? Like I said earlier, sometimes we have to play the cards we are delt, but when you have a "good" hand, you can certainly afford to pay it forward on your own; but, when you throw craps, I guess you/I/we will just be shit out of luck.

Ok, I took one of those quizzes earlier which described me as "Neutral" on my political views. I doubt that I'm Neutral, but maybe not crazy on either side of the fence.