The Art of Living

The quote, "If you are young and not liberal, then you have no heart, but if you are old and not conservative, then you have no brain," is most often attributed to Disraeli or to Churchill. It seems more Churchillian to me, but it really doesn't matter who said it as much as it matters what was said at this point in our history.

I usually try to stay away from politics in this blog, but the country is sharply divided between liberal and conservative citizens like no other time in modern history. Worse yet, the country is divided between radical liberals and radical conservatives as in no other time in our modern history. To me it is very easy to navigate the radical divide. Radicals are never deserving of our considering their ideas and ideals other than to guard against them. The reason is simple, radicals have stopped thinking, if indeed they every thought at all, they act only on emotion and self-interest. That is the root of the evil that is presently preying upon our country. So many citizens, including most of our elected officials have long since forgotten their duty to the public interest and the good of the country. There is not a single statesman left in the Congress. They all say and do whatever is necessary in their minds to get reelected and enrich themselves at the public expense.

The prime example of this kind of behavior, unfortunately, is at the very top of our government. That is not to say that he is acting any worse than other elected officials, he just happens to be at the top of the heap and thus more visible. He and the other 644 men and women who make up the three branches of our Federal government have long since forgotten the art of governing. In fact, they have tragically forgotten the art of living itself, and the country, indeed the world, is the worse for it. For much of our 218 year history, the United States has been a positive and respected bastion of leadership and selfless service to the world. Over and over again, we have spilled our own blood on foreign battlefields to save the world from tyranny and tyrants. Now, we have squandered that leadership and that respect in the name of partisan politics and self-interest.

All this can be turned around. Reagan was very successful in giving the United States a new sense of love of country and a new respect for  the countries place in the world after the devastating Carter years. It could happen again, but I'm not optimistic. I see no one on the political stage that has Reagan's abilities to unite people and make them realize there is more to our common good than to our disagreements. More dismaying is that I see no one on the national scene that has Reagan's natural goodness of heart.

It is important to realize that the shape the country is in today did not have it genesis in politics. Its roots are unmistakably entwined in all of us. We are a people who have succumbed to the baser sides of prosperity, self-interest and emotionalism. In short, as a people, we have forgotten the art of living.

For those of us who are gay or bisexual, the art of living has always been a struggle. But now, life has become a struggle for almost every American. The middle class which has always been the backbone of the country has largely disappeared. Why? Because businesses have broken the social contract that allowed them to make money while allowing their workers to prosper too. Henry Ford made himself a millionaire by building and pricing his automobiles in such a manner that the men who built them could afford to drive them. The genius of his thinking is now forgotten. The business of business today is to make as much money as possible with absolutely no regard for the workers who actually make the money for their employers other than to push them harder and harder to make more.

Anything that makes money is fair game. Houston's Enron Corporation opened the flood gates on that way of doing business and the biggest and once respected members of the U.S. financial firms and the Barney Madoff's have followed their example in droves. Just find something to sell. If you have to make it up that's ok. Package it to look inviting and hawk it to the suckers all the time knowing it is worthless. No matter that millions of people loose their jobs and their homes so long as a profit is made by the crooks in suits, white shirts and ties. If you have any doubt of this at all, consider that while the financial sector makes up just 6% of employment in the U.S it now enjoys 30% of U.S. income. That tells the story.

It doesn't have to be this way. None of us is above some degree of greed or self interest. Certainly, no one is above disreputable behavior, but that doesn't mean that greed and disreputable behavior have to be the things at which we excel.

Last week, I came across an article in the August, 2014, Reader's Digest entitled "Art of Living. The title itself caught my interest and I began to read the excellent article by Mark Divine. The article is taken from Divine's book The Way of the Seal.

Divine confides that after college he entered the world of accounting and consulting without much thought other than making a lot of money. As a talented young man he did indeed begin to make a great deal of money, but to his surprise he found that more and more often he found himself feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with the daily grind. It was not only the grind that was getting to him. He found himself feeling dirty about tactics his firm was using that were not precisely illegal, but were unethical. The tactics sometimes forced companies innocent of any wrong doing into bankruptcy and forced their workers out of their jobs. The realization horrified Divine.

For some time Divine had had a desire to quit his high paying job and become a public servant. A big

man in great shape with a real love of physical exercise and the outdoors, he knew exactly how he wanted to serve. He wanted to become a Navy Seal Officer. Soon the straw that broke the camel's back occurred in Divine's company. He resigned. A year later he graduated from Navy Seal training. Eighty cadets had started the training. Divine was one of 19 who graduated, and he was at the top of his class. He went on to serve honorably as a Seal, and after retiring from the Navy he started an entrepreneurial career which lead him to create several successful multi million dollar companies.

My son is career Navy. Though he was never a Navy Seal, he was a member of the Navy's Special Ops. I was very pleased to read Divine's description of some of the things he learned along his successful career in leadership. Several of them were the same conversations my son and I have had about leadership. For instance, Divine says that leadership is not a skill. Instead, leadership is a character set - a core value of one's personality. Successful, happy and fulfilled people, Divine says, have core values such as honor, courage and a true commitment to personal excellence that makes them natural leaders. It is a conversation my son and I have had many times. For my son, his own sense of honor, courage and commitment to personal excellence helped him to become one of the youngest Command Master Chief's in the U.S. Navy, and it has guided him through many a battle and many a tight squeeze. No one should ever get the idea that honor, courage and commitment to personal excellence is something that is always appreciated. It's not. When one rises above his peers, there is often jealousy and peek. When a young career military man still in his twenties begins to be singled out for praise from senior officers, junior officers are, more often than not, less than supportive.

Divine tells of a senior officer challenging him to succinctly state what he stood for. After several false starts, he told the officer, "Destiny favors the prepared in body, mind and spirit." Again it is a concept my son and I have talked about many times. When he first joined the Navy, I told him that if he was always willing to do more than was asked of him, he would have an exceptional career. Luckily, it was one of the times he truly listened to me and his personal commitment to always being prepared and willing to go the extra mile served him well from the very beginning of his career right into the second decade of his career.

Divine goes on to explain that after talking with the officer, he went on to expand what it meant to him to be prepared in body, mind and spirit. He wrote the following stand:

• Destiny will favor me if I am prepared in body, mind and spirit.
• I must work harder than expected and be more patient than others.
• Leadership is a privilege, not a right.
• As a warrior, I will be the last to pick up the sword but will fight to protect myself, my family and my country.  (This another conversation my son and I have had many many times. Nothing irks my son more than for someone to say or imply that military men and women love fighting. He tells people that as a young man who has seen the horrors of war often and first hand, he hates war and fighting, but he accepts the responsibility to protect his country and those he loves at any cost.)
• I will find happiness by seeking truth, wisdom and love and not by chasing thrills, wealth, titles or fame.
• I will seek to improve myself, my team and the world every day.

Divine, correctly states that few people these days take the time to think deeply about their personal ethos.  He encourages the people he works with to take the following steps to correct this:

• Write out a personal list of the principles on which you stand.
• Define personal values.
• Identify personal passions.
• Discover the purpose of your life.

I believe that every life has a purpose. Unfortunately, I also believe that the number of people who identify their life's purpose are much smaller than the number who do not. It's a tragedy. Knowing one's purpose in life can make the good times in one's life even more rewarding and it can smooth over the inevitable rough spots as well.

As a young boy, my parents always reminded me that God would use me - use me as a good example if he could, as a bad example if he must. We live in a time when bad examples surround us on all sides. Those who cheat, steal and use others are exalted in our popular culture. Even those who murder are often admired. How did we get to this point? I think Divine would say, it is because so few of us have any personal set of ethics. We just go with the flow.

I was raised by parents for whom ethical behavior was paramount. Breeches of ethical behavior on my part were always punished. Thus, ethics became an important part of my life as well. As a young bisexual man who wanted a traditional marriage and family and who seemed to need something beyond that as well, ethical behavior in that part of my life was always troublesome. As I've gotten older I find that I am glad to have been troubled. The troublesome nature of my life helped me to at least stay within personal boundaries of propriety and safety.

As a Christian, I've always struggled with the concept of hell. I have come not to believe in a geographically defined pit of burning unquenchable fire. However, I very much believe that hell does exist. It exist all around us and within us, and when hell does invade our minds and our spirits, its metaphorical fires can indeed be unquenchable.

The antidote to this metaphorical hell is the Art of Living. A life lived well is a beautiful thing and a

very satisfying thing. Unfortunately, we live in an era when parents dearest wish for their children is for them to live a life free of adversity. We would do well instead to teach our children to live an artful life. In an artful life children would grow into adults who could face any adversity and overcome it, if not in a physical sense, in a spiritual and mental sense. I have an incurable cancer. Barring a medical breakthrough, it will kill me. But I have overcome my cancer. I do not let it define me. I define myself and I choose to live a life in which I count my many blessings rather than to dwell on physical and social cancers that surround me. Such is the blessing of living an Artful Life.

None of us can control what adversities we encounter in life. What we can control is how we handle those adversities. Handling them in such a manner that they are temporary inconveniences and refusing to be defined by our adversities is the definition of Artful Living.

Jack Scott

And Then There is Texas

I've always been proud to be a Texan. Texas is a truly unique place in the world. That is not to say that there are not other unique places in the world. There are of course. That is why my wife and I spend so much time traveling around the world. But Texas is the unique place with which I am most familiar and the place I always return to from my travels.

That said, more and more my pride in being a Texan is being shaken these days by the utter stupidity

of some of those who make news as political activists. Recently Texas had its State GOP Convention. Nothing wrong with that of course. Every state has one, but undoubtedly none of these other states conventions come up with as many stupid platform proposals as do the far right-wing Texans who represent the evangelical Christians and the Tea Party and dominate the Platform Committee.

In the recent GOP Convention in Texas the approximately 7000 member Platform Committee decided in their total lack of wisdom that the GOP Platform should contain language supporting Reparative Therapy for gays to help them become straight. Seeing as how every respected psychiatric organization in the United States has declared Reparative Therapy to be roughly the equivalent of curative snake oil, it was an embarrassing moment for most Texas Republicans and for Texas. But that is part of the problem. The far right-wing Christians and the radical Tea Party members have no capacity whatsoever to be embarrassed over their own stupidity and ignorance. The are perfectly comfortable in their feelings that what they believe is truth and that it is their duty to see that everyone else believes it too.

While other states are recognizing the reality of equal opportunity under the law for gays to marry their same-sex partners, too many Texans cling to the false notion that such marriages would be a direct and immediate danger to their own marital status.

Fortunately, at the same time, an amazing number of Texas citizens do not subscribe to this foolishness. The other day a couple of my gay friends invited my wife and I to a party at their home. They have a large home in a part of Houston that is being regentrified  on the north side. This regentrification is largely the product of gay couples who are moving into the area and fixing up homes that have been home to squatters for the last several years. The house my friends bought was totally covered in vines in the front. In the back, windows had been broken for squatters to enter and the house was a total wreck. Light fixtures, air conditioners and anything else with any value had been ripped out and carried away. In just less than a year, my friends turned it into a showplace again much to the liking of their straight neighbors.

The neighbors have not only continued to be supportive but also quick to include my friends in the social activities of the neighborhood. At the party there were lesbian couples, gay couples and straight couples. It was not a gay party. It was a neighborhood party and everyone had a great deal of fun. The party started at 5:00 p.m. and the invitation said it would continue until the last guest departed. That turned out to be a little after 2:00 a.m.

The point is that most of Texas' population is located in its three large metropolitan areas and these

people are doing a great job of learning how to judge people, not by their sexual orientation or the color of their skin, but rather by their character. It is a wonderful thing. It's not such a wonderful thing that the chief purveyors of hate and discrimination these days is found in our politics and in our evangelical churches. Oh sure, the claim to love the sinner but hate the sin thinking that lets them off the hook. It never occurs to them that homosexuality might not always be a sin.

Yesterday a circuit court in Denver ruled that every state must allow same-sex marriage under the equal protection provisions of the Constitution of the United States of America. This sets in motion the process that will end with a review by the U.S. Supreme Court. No one can predict what the sharply divided court will do in this case; but if I was betting, I know where I'd place my bet.

We live in interesting times. There is much wrong with our world. Hatred looms in too many areas of the world fed all to0 often by religious zealots who use religion to support their own hate and prejudice.

I'm proud to be an American and a Texan, for although we're far from perfect, we remain the best hope of the world and things generally are getting better all the time in our part of the world. Hopefully our politicians and our religious leaders will come to recognize that they are out of touch with the citizens they represent. We'll never get rid of political institutions, but if religious institutions don't soon come to grips with changing realities, they'll soon find themselves having to close their doors for lack of money and congregations to keep them open.

Jack Scott

Prayers for Bobby

Prayers for Bobby starring Sigourney Weaver was released in 2009. It had long been on my Netflix list

and it came to the top of the least this last weekend. It is based on the true story of Mary and Robert Griffith's reaction upon finding that their young teen-age son was a homosexual.

In many ways Bobby Griffith was the perfect son. He was loving and kind hearted with a quick smile. He dreamed of one day being a writer. Perhaps because he was the oldest of her two sons, he was his mother's favorite among her fours children.

Bobby was outgoing and popular in his school, but as he started dating his personal doubts about himself began to wear on his mind more and more. When it became clear to him that the girl he was dating had reached the point of wanting more from him than he was interested in giving, he abruptly ended the relationship shocking her and their mutual friends as well as his family.

In the ensuing weeks Bobby's demeanor continued to deteriorate to the point that it became noticeable to his friends and family. Finally, in desperation, Bobby confided in his younger brother and told him he was gay. He extracted a promise from his brother to keep his secret. His brother was supportive and tried to reassure Bobby that he was too young to know for sure that he was in fact gay.

In reality his brother was shocked and concerned. Bobby obviously was in a personal crisis and he had no idea what to do, so in spite of his promise to Bobby, he told his mother what Bobby had admitted to him.

It was 1982; the public perception of homosexuality was far different than it is today. Bobby's mother was a devout yet lazy unquestioning fundamental Christian. She took the Bible, at least the parts of it she was familiar with, literally. She depended on her preacher to tell her what she should know of God and what she should believe and not believe. In other words, she was typical of the tens of thousands of fundamental Christians who have no desire whatsoever to think for themselves and look for a personal relationship with God. Like all people who are content with their fundamentalist view of God, it never occurred to Mary Griffith to question anything about her faith. To do so, in her mind, would be to question God himself. It just wasn't done.

Robert Griffith, Bobby's father, and Bobby's three siblings were all supportive of Bobby. At least as supportive as they could be without incurring the wrath of Bobby's mother.  Just as Mary Griffith blindly followed the pronouncements of her preacher on spiritual matters, the family bowed to Mary Griffith in matters of theology. Even Bobby could not really bring himself to question his mother's views on homosexuality. He wanted to be a good son. He wanted his family to be proud of him. Most of all he feared going to Hell. It didn't seem fair to him that he would be condemned to an eternal hell for something he simply could not change. Bobby was trapped between an irresistible force and an unmovable object - his mother's religious view of homosexuality. Because he respected his mother he felt she was right in thinking he was bound for Hell.

The Griffiths were a well to do middle class family. They had the resources to get Bobby help, and they did so. The only problem was that in spite of the fact that the American Psychotherapy Association had declassified homosexuality as deviate behavior in 1973, nine years later there were still plenty of so called therapists who subscribed to the idea supported by Mary's church - homosexuality was a choice and homosexuals could be healed. All they had to do was pray earnestly to God for healing and have an earnest desire for healing. The therapist, instead of helping Bobby was just one more nail in his coffin. No one was truly on his side. Everyone and everything was  either aligned against him or unwilling to offend the religious culture or polite society's perceptions of what was acceptable.

Though Bobby wanted nothing more than to please his mother, it reached the point where they could not have a normal conversation. She vowed that she would not have a homosexual son. All Bobby saw was hate in her actions. He did not understand how his mother or other Christians could separate their hatred of homosexuality from hatred for homosexuals.

The Real Life Bobby Griffith

Every time she saw him his mother peppered him with Bible verses she saw as condemning homosexuality. Every time he came home she grilled him about where he had been and if he had been with homosexuals. She pasted Bible verses warning of the wrath of God all over his room. In reality, she was doing all this out of misguided love for her son.  She had no idea, at the time, that her misguided love would have tragic consequences.

Things at home kept getting worse and worse. Bobby finally dropped out of high school and moved to a new town to live with a cousin. This cousin was very openly supportive of Bobby, but it was not enough. Bobby continued to be haunted by the disapproval of the people who meant the most to him, his mother and his family.  In 1983 Bobby jumped from a bridge onto a busy freeway to end his torment.

His family was devastated, for their love for Bobby had been as real as their desire to see him healed of his homosexuality. Among Bobby's things, Mary Griffith found literature from the Metropolitan Community Church. Tormented and broken by genuine grief, Mary Griffith sought out the paster of the church. She was amazed that a Protestant minister did not share her views on homosexuality and even more amazed that unlike her and her own pastor, did not see the Bible as the literal world of God. She was utterly unable to believe that he encouraged the members of his church to question God and thought that such questioning was pleasing to God. She was repelled from this first meeting with the MCC Pastor in shock and revulsion. But her torment drove her back for a second meeting. The Pastor encouraged her to look into PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). At first she could not imagine families who were actually proud of their gay sons; but again, her torment and grief drove her to investigate the organization.

Gradually, Mary Griffith began to comprehend that there were other views than that of her church on homosexuality. But with this new comprehension came the bitter realization that she had killed her own son with her rigid, blind, unyielding and uninformed views on a subject she really knew little about  and about which she had sought information from only one source until it was too late to help the son she had loved so dearly.

Fortunately for Mary, she found the understanding and forgiveness she had denied to her son. She had not been able to save her own son because she had not thought to look beyond the ignorance enshrined in her faith. Over and over Bobby had pleaded with her to just listen to him, but she never did. She just assaulted him over and over with the Bible and her own misconceptions of the Gospel (Good News) of Christ. To her credit, after Bobby's death, she vowed to do all she could to prevent other such useless deaths.

She became a member of PFLAG. She addressed school boards, state legislators and the Congress of the United States. She wrote books and cooperated in the filming of Bobby's life story. But 30 years after Bobby's senseless death and the loss of what would have surely been a productive life, suicide by young homosexual men continues at tragic rates. In spite of the fact that many main stream Protestant Churches now genuinely welcome gays and lesbians into their memberships and support them in their search for a loving rather than a hateful God, the face of Christianity across the United States and the world is the face portrayed by the right wing judgmental fundamentalist Christians who, like Mary once did, cling to their worship of a hateful God who just happens to hate the same things they do and ignore the sins they commit just as they themselves do.

Fortunately, in our society at large, much has changed since 1983. There is hardly a home across America that has not been touched by a gay person who has come out of the closet. There are sons, grandsons, fathers, brothers, and nephews who have acknowledged their homosexuality to their families. Homosexuals are no longer those people. Instead it is now clear they are  the people we love most in the world. Homosexuals are our family members.

I had an aunt whom I loved dearly. After my mother's death at a much too young an age, my aunt became like a mother to me. But like Mary Griffith she was a fundamental Christian and rigid in her beliefs. When her daughter married into an emotionally and physically abusive relationship and then had the good sense to divorce, my aunt, for the first time in her life, began to question the tenets of her faith and how they impacted the real life situations of those she loved. As a result, she became much less rigid, more open to the nuances of faith and less sure she knew the mind of God. So it is with homosexuality. When parents are confronted with the homosexuality of a child, they often begin to really examine their rigid views and often change them. That has happened recently with a U.S. Congressman. A Republican Conservative was told by his own son that he was gay. It changed the way the Congressman felt and the way he voted.

Unfortunately, many fundamental Christians do not have the courage to follow my aunt's example; or, like Mary Griffith, they continue to force those they love most in the world into committing some tragic act before they really examine their opinions and beliefs. They continue to remain ignorant about homosexuality, what it is and what it isn't.

My friend Mike is a good example of the type of young man Mary Griffith often spoke of after Bobby's death. Mike was big, strong, handsome and athletic. He was a popular student who was also the valedictorian of his graduating class. He was the all-American young man. Since Bobby's death, Mary Griffith has warned fundamental Christians, "Before you echo 'Amen' in your home or place of worship, think and remember…a child is listening."

Mike was one of those listening. When I met him almost 20 years ago, he was just about to become another of those tragic suicides carried out by homosexual young men. For reasons I still do not fully understand, God intervened in Mike's life and arranged for me to meet him though we lived more than 1500 miles apart. I now believe my entire life had been preparation for meeting Mike and ultimately saving his life by introducing him to the loving God I had come to know in my own life's journey - a God utterly different from the Baptist God who had been used to assault me over and over again in my youth and also utterly different from the Presbyterian God who had convinced Mike that, like Bobby Griffith, he was destined for the fires of Hell.

The truth is, there is no Baptist God and no Presbyterian God. Those Gods are the boogy men of the ignorant, the lazy unquestioning and those uneducated in true faith. Those Gods are the false idols of the God about whom the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8: 38-39:

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The words from Romans are in plain English, but fundamental Christians, instead of accepting the grace of God, of which the words speak as a simple fact, still insist on responding, "Yes, but…." That response continues to tragically cost the Bobby Griffiths of the world their lives and their futures. It is a sin for which they, more than likely, shall eventually be judged.

My faith is and always has been important to me, but even as a child, the time came when a child's faith was no longer adequate for me. I began to question, to doubt and to search.

Now as an old man, close to the time when I shall meet my maker, I continue to question, doubt, search and wonder. I have no idea what God is really like other than that if he exists at all, he exists in the spirit of love, compassion and understanding.

It does not bother me that people question or even refuse to believe, for as a life long Christian, I too continue to have my doubts and my questions. The God of the Bible, as the fundamentalists interpret it, simply fails to meet test. Yet even in my doubts I have never felt that God is angry with me or is threatening me with eternal hell fire. Indeed, my life is and always has been richly blessed. God or fate has been unbelievably kind to me. Romans says "nothing" can come between me and God. Nothing has to include, by definition, my doubts, fears and questions.

At the times when I dwell most on my questioning, it never fails that God reassures me of his presence and his love. Either that or my life has contained an entirely improbable number of coincidences. Over the last several weeks I have been very concerned with the fears of a friend who nearing the end of his life. He has expressed his fears to me several times. I have told him how I avoid such fears, but I'm just his friend. My words are just my words, based on my faith.

I asked God to help me know how to help him to allay his fears. This week that request was answered in the most unusual, improbable and entirely unexpected way. Either it was God answering that request or it was one of the grandest and elaborate coincidences I have ever seen in my long life of seeming grand and elaborate perfectly orchestrated coincidences. From what I have seen in my life, God does not mind our questioning. He sees it as a proof of our interest and our desire for faith and assurance.

The Bible is an important book, but it is also a dangerous book in the wrong hands. For those who blindly try to follow it, led by those who are also blind by choice, the Bible often brings untold tragedy. Bobby Griffith was just one of the tragic victims of a misused Bible and a misguided faith. There have been millions over the course of history.

The Bible was written by men who were influenced by the times in which they lived and the events that shaped their lives. Thus, just as does humanity as a whole, the Bible encapsulates the worst of man as well as man at his best and everything in between. It offers examples in life and in allegories of life. Parts of it are truly inspired, yet much of it is  truly depraved.

Because it was written in another time, it makes heroes of men and their deeds who would be arrested and convicted of the most heinous crimes today. The story of Abraham and his son is but one of several examples.

Those who would truly follow God should make sure they are following the God of grace and love and not a God of hate, vengeance and wrath. The true God commands us to love one another unconditionally. It's not a hard concept to understand. Elvis Presley put it in modern language when he sang, "Clean up your own back yard. You tend to your business and I'll tend to mine." Jesus said it differently, "Ye who is without sin cast the first stone."

Those who would avoid the worship of a false God, must be willing to think for themselves, to question and study on their own. They must get second opinions from other recognized theologians.
There are innumerable views of God. It's wise to bet on the God of Grace and Love, not the God of hate and vengeance. When deciding on a church home it is wise to choose one where the members support each other and support their community in a spirit of brotherly love. A church where a particular "sin" is not the main topic of discussion. The Bible says sin is sin and we are all sinners. People who believe that simply cannot get hung up on one "sin" such as homosexuality. Mary Griffith, saw her son as a sinner. She did not see her sins as equal to his. It is a universal failing of all fundamental Christians. God saw the sins of Mary Griffith and her son as equal, because in his eyes all sins are equal. Mary's failure is a universal failure of all fundamental Christians, both Protestant and Catholic. In Catholic theology there are moral sins and venial sins. Venial sins are forgivable. Mortal sins send one to Hell. The only problem is, the Bible makes it clear there are no such things. There is simply sin and all sin is forgivable by the Grace of God.

Homosexuality is real. It is not a choice. There is no clear theological evidence that homosexuality is inherently sinful. Homosexuals can live productively and contribute greatly to society. All that says to me that homosexuality is a gift of God, created for a purpose. Homosexuality can not be prayed away. It cannot be cured. In her overwhelming grief, Mary Griffith came to see God had not healed Bobby of his homosexuality because He had given it to Bobby as a gift and for a purpose. He did not need to be healed because he was not ill. In the depths of her grief, Mary Griffith came to understand that she was the one who had sinned by not supporting her son, letting him live in peace and come to be the exceptional and productive person God had meant for him to be.

Bobby Griffith died because his own mother and his own church decided to cast stones at him rather than love him unconditionally. It is most likely not lost on Mary Griffith that her son would have been better off had she been a non-believer than he was being raised by the Christian she was in the 1980's. How utterly tragic for Mary Griffith! How very tragic for Bobby!

Jack Scott

Pope Frances and Gays

Pope Frances' rhetorical question recently, "Who am I to judge a gay person?" was a refreshing development. I am under no illusion that the Catholic Church is about to abandon decades of discrimination against gays, but the new Pope's statement offers a bit of hope that things may get better, even in the Catholic Church.

God knows more Christians and Christian Churches should be asking themselves the same question the

Pope asked. I simply cannot understand how anyone who reads the Gospel of Christ can harbor hatred for gays. The gospel makes it clear that Christ, were he physically alive in the world today, would be found in the company of gays on a regular basis. He would also be offering them unconditional love and acceptance.

But some Christians seem never to cease acting like they are God's little helpers in deciding who to condemn for their sins and who to persecute. In today's paper, Pat Robinson, is at it again. Robinson has a bad habit of publicly proclaiming to know when and why God is going to punish a person or group of persons. Today, he said that America and the American people will feel the wrath of an angry God if the United States helps to broker a Middle East Peace by allowing Jerusalem to be divided by the Christians and Muslims. I am a life long practicing Christian and I believe God does speak to us from time to time; but I absolutely do not think God tells Pat Robinson who is in line for punishment and who is not. Robinson is just another religious nut who has caught the attention of the press because he can be depended upon to represent all Christians as nuts. In the collective mind of the national press, all Christians are nuts and Robinson proves their point.

The new Pope also made news recently by proclaiming that he was sure there would be people in heaven who had been atheists during their lifetimes. It is another indiction of the change Pope Frances might bring to the Catholic Church should he live long enough.

My experience has shown me there are, in fact, atheists who exhibit all the characteristics of Christians. They just can't rationalize a transcendent God. I can't imagine a loving God condemning someone for using the power of their mind to reach a decision that is inarguably justified by any rational standard.

As I told one of my atheist friends recently, "If I'm right in my faith you and I will both die and find ourselves at peace in God's Kingdom. If you are right in your lack of faith, you and I will both die and be at peace in oblivion. Either way, there is nothing to fear."

As a Christian I continue to value my gay and atheist friends and I do not try to hide them from my Christian friends. I'm elated to know that Pope Frances approves of that.

Jack Scott

Sign of the Times

It has always been the height of ignorance to me to hear the Christian Right claim that gay marriage damages traditional marriage between a man and a woman. This sign photographed at an Episcopal Chruch says it all.

Those who think that all Christians share the beliefs of the Christian Right should pay particular attention to the photograph. The Episcopal Church is just one of  many Christian denominations that put their emphasis on the love of God and don't get caught up in trying to play God by deciding for themselves who the sinners are.

Jack Scott

The Times Are A Changing - Fast!

A while back, I wrote in a blog piece that I, for one, was amazed at how quickly attitudes toward gay men and women were changing in the United States. Even more amazing to me is how fast the average American is embracing gay marriage.

Some people did not share my viewpoint. They felt like any change for the better was more than canceled out by the attitudes yet left unchanged. I guess in a way it is the old adage of a glass half full or a glass half empty.

This coming week the Supreme Court is set to rule on monumental questions of importance to all gay men and women. While most Court watchers expect the Court to take a moderate rather than a radical stand on the cases before them, the cases will almost surely add momentum to the pace of change.

As a political conservative as well as a social liberal, I was extremely satisfied by the actions this last week of this man. He has been roundly criticized by the religious right types, but it is difficult to ignore his courage in his convictions, even if it took him a while to build his courage to the level that would allow him to go public.

Don't know who the man is? Stay tuned here. I'll have more to say during the week of June 24th.

Jack Scott

Faith And Doubt

I'm not a real handy man around the house. Oh, it's not that I don't understand the things a man should understand about basic plumbing, wiring and maintenance, I do. I'm just not good at it; and to tell the truth, I'm not that interested in it.

When I was a teenager, my Dad offered to teach me how to take care of my car's maintenance needs. I consented to learn how to keep water in the battery, change the air filter and change a tire when necessary. I even learned how to change the oil and the filter and for the many lean years after I married at age 18 while still working my way through college, I did all those things, not cheerfully but I did them to save the money. But that was the extent of it. Unlike my brothers, I never attempted to change the brake pads, put in a new carburetor or whatever. I did change the spark plugs on my old Ford Sprint once. Once was enough for me.

And so it is around the house. During the lean years of raising a family and building a career, I replaced a worn out garbage disposal. I stopped the faucets from dripping. I mowed the yard and built a fence around it.  I painted inside and out several times. I built a deck in the back yard. I even wired in some new electrical outlets, all to save money.

But as my income increased and the kids became independent, most all of that sort of handy man stuff stopped. I still enjoy working in my flower beds and making my back yard beautiful, but the weekly chores of mowing and trimming I hire out to a yard man whose time is well worth the cost. So it is with my automobiles. Since college I've averaged buying a new car every 3 - 4 years. The minute they start requiring anything other than routine maintenance their gone. I can afford to drive new cars. I enjoy driving new cars, so I drive new cars. It makes life more simple for me in the long run and less stressful.

From time to time, I'll still perform some little maintenance item around the house. We built the house a little more than 20 years ago (where has the time gone) and so it is getting to the age where some things have to be done. I hire someone to paint. No way am I going to paint these days. I hired someone to replace the water heaters. I also hired someone to put in three new doors that needed to be replaced.

In the near future, both the kitchen and the master bath will need to be gutted and rebuilt from the floor up. My friend Mike just got through doing that at his house and by doing it himself he saved a bundle, but there is no way in hell I'd even think of doing it. I'll suck it up and shell out the 40K to have it done.

But last week I finally got tired of the wife griping about the lanterns on either side of the front door. Once polished brass, they had long since become irreparably tarnished. Between the two lanterns there were six bulbs, only three of which would light. I had to agree with her, it was past time to do something about them. For months I had been keeping an eye out at Home Depot and Lowes for something I liked. Last week I finally found them, and at just under $100 each the price was right.

The wife asked if I was going to get someone to install them. "Naw, I can do it," I said. When she left for work Monday morning, I got out my ladder and my tools and tackled the job. It was a fairly easy task; and in fact, I enjoyed it.

As those of you who have performed this task know, the lantern hangs on a bracket which is attached to the electrical box with two ½ " screws. One or two longer screws are screwed into the bracket from it back side on which the lantern is secured with a decorative nut. These lanterns were big so two screws were used to secure each of them to the wall bracket.

Of course when I screwed the 2" screws into the back of the bracket I turned them clockwise until the protruded out from the bracket with enough length for me to mount the lantern and attach the decorative nut. With the nut attached I turned it clockwise to tighten the lantern securely against the brick wall.

While doing this, it occurred to me that in a way this bracket assembly was a metaphor for life because to protrude the 2" screw through the bracket I had turned it clockwise. Now I was securing the decorative nut by turning it clockwise, but the screw was turning counter clockwise from the perspective from which I had inserted it. Now, it was turning the opposite direction from that perspective; but from my perspective of tightening the decorative nut, it was still turning clockwise.

So it is in life. The perspective from which we view life is all important. Our perspective can turn things around completely. What is right can become wrong and what is wrong can become right based on our perspective, but the thing itself,whatever it may be, is in reality, just doing what it is doing with no regard to our perspective.

Several months ago I ran on to this You Tube video of Dan Savage. I liked the video, but I was awaiting some inspiration about how to use it in my blog. It occurred to me this little insight into the bracket mechanism of my lanterns  and perspective was my inspiration.

In the video, Savage speaks about faith and doubt; and Savage is a very intelligent guy who believes
only in what he can see and understand. Therefore, in spite of his confessed desire to find faith, his doubts make him at best an agnostic and in effect an atheist.

Recently, on her deathbed, his mother's last words were, "I'll see you again." Savage wants to believe that with all his will; but his will simply cannot overcome his doubt and it saddens him to realize that from his perspective, his mother is simply dead. She is not in heaven. She is dead and she is gone and her body is in a grave.

Savage and I shared much the same experience as children. Because of our intellects, doubts came early and came with powerful impact. We both quickly caught the church in its lies. And finding one lie led to another and another and another. Faith was severely shaken. In fact, it was almost shaken to death.

In Savage's mind all that is left of faith is the wish that it could be embraced. In my mind, I came to see faith as a matter of perspective just like the screw in the bracket assembly. The screw is just doing what it is doing with no real regard to my perspective. God either exists or doesn't exist without any regard whatsoever to my perspective. Everything in my intellect tells me it is all just a case of wishful thinking to believe in God and an eternal life. But my faith manages to keep a toehold on belief. Faith and doubt are but two different ends of the same screw, two different perspectives of the same thing.

What direction that screw is turning is just a matter of perspective. I can understand both perspectives. I embrace both perspectives. But I hope with all that is within me that my faith proves to be the correct perspective. To me, there is as much to suggest that God is real as there is to suggest he is not. None of it can be proven either way. Indeed, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," just as the Bible itself says it is.

All that is physically me, existed before I was born. My faith hopes that all that is me will exist after my death.

Savage is right. Almost all the church teaches is a lie. That is because the church is corrupted by time and by men. I have no faith at all that there is a city with golden streets and alabaster walls. I can't imagine anything more boring than sitting around praising God for eternity and I don't' think a god who would enjoy being praised in such a way is worthy of praise. But I choose to believe, to hope, there is consciousness after death in a place where the spirit will reside in peace forever.

In addition to being a man who has never quite been able to bring himself to faith, Dan Savage is a homosexual man with a partner and a child. In my faith, all that makes no difference at all to God because God views us all from only one perspective, endless unmerited grace and love. Salvation is universal. God does not hold Savage or anyone else hostage to the God given intellect that just won't allow the embrace of faith. Neither does he hold me hostage to my meager toehold on faith.

Lord I believe, help my unbelief!

Jack Scott

Giving Back To Westboro Baptist Church

The following video and blog appeared this week on The Huffington Post. I couldn't help but smile. I thought some of you might do the same.

The Westboro Baptist Church is about to get a big surprise in the form of a new neighbor who plans to give the notoriously anti-gay group a taste of its own medicine.

Aaron Jackson, one of the founders of Planting Peace, a multi-pronged charity that has in the past concentrated on rainforest conservation, opening orphanages and deworming programs, bought a house that sits directly across from the church's compound six months ago. On Tuesday, March 19, he and a team of volunteers are painting it to match the gay pride flag.

The project -- which the nonprofit is calling the "Equality House" -- is the first in a new campaign Planting Peace plans to wage against the group. Westboro is known for its intimidating tactics of protesting (or threatening to protest) what they refer to as America's pro-gay, anti-God agenda, in close proximity to pride parades, soldier funerals and other events like the Sandy Hook memorial services.

"I read a story about Josef Miles, a 10-year-old kid who counter-protested the Westboro Baptist Church by holding the sign that says 'God Hates No One,'" Jackson told The Huffington Post.

"I didn't know anything about the church or where they were located, but that story kept popping up. And one night I wondered, Where is this church? I got on Google Earth, and I was 'walking down the road,' and I did a 360 view. And I saw a 'For Sale' sign sitting in the front yard of a house. Right away it hit me, Oh my gosh, I could buy a house in front of the WBC! And immediately I thought: And I'm going to paint that thing the color of the pride flag."

Jackson said he's always wanted to get involved in gay activism, but hadn't been sure of how to do it until this opportunity presented itself.

"The reason I haven't gotten into the gay rights activism is because, in a sense, it's almost silly -- it's 2013, are we really still in this position? It just seems ludicrous," he said. "But it is a real issue and kids are killing themselves. I've wanted to do something, and I knew when I saw that house for sale that it all came together. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a little crazy and there's no red tape in my charity. When I want to do something, I do it."

Planting Peace bought the house for roughly $83,000, and Jackson has been living in Topeka for just over a month. As he waited for the perfect time to transform the house into a very visible celebration of gay pride -- and a direct challenge to what Westboro preaches -- he encountered members of the group, including the Phelps family, which has run the church since it was established in 1956.

"They own the majority of the homes in the community, and I walk through the area every day, and I see them running in between each other's houses," he said. "One day I was walking, and Shirley Phelps [one of Westboro's main spokespeople and the daughter of the church's leader, Fred Phelps] was on her four-wheeler. And I said, 'Hey guys, how are you?' And [she and her husband] responded, 'Oh, we're good. How are you?' We had a short conversation, and she was extremely nice, and she made a joke and we all laughed."

"It's the craziest thing -- and it really throws you off -- because she's the type of woman who calls you "hun" and "darling" -- she's very Southern," he said. "It's like, aren't you the lady that's supposed to be casting me into hell? It's truly mind-boggling, but I can't say anything personally bad about her because she was kind to me and she made me laugh. She'd probably be fun to hang out with."

But pleasantries aside, Jackson said he's confident that the church is already wary of his presence and may be expecting some sort of action from him.

"They're extremely smart, and I would be willing to guess that when I moved into this community that they looked up property records, especially considering that I drive a Prius and I have an original reelect Jimmy Carter sticker on the back of it -- I'm a screaming liberal," he said.

Jackson said he's also witnessed members of the church taking photos of the house and the industrial flagpole he installed, which stands in opposition to the flagpole that currently flies the pride flag and the American flag upside-down in front of the Westboro Baptist Church.

"It looks like the United Nations is having a stand off with flags. These flag poles are huge. They know that we've forked out big money for this," Jackson said.

Jackson said he's seen people who he thinks are members of the church, including high-ranking member Steve Drain, taking photos of the house.

By the end of Tuesday, the Westboro Baptist Church will no longer be wondering what is going on at Jackson's home. But beyond painting the Equality House the colors of the rainbow flag and flying the flag from the newly installed flagpole, Jackson is already working on the next steps in his new fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LBGT) equality.

"We want this house to be a message that where there's hate, there's also love. But we also want to raise awareness and capital, and we want to put all that money into creating and sustaining anti-bullying programs, along with supporting anti-bullying programs that already exist," he said. "Beyond the symbolic message of the home, [the house] will be utilized by volunteers to live here, and these volunteers will work on promoting equality anywhere in the world and managing these anti-bullying initiatives that we plan on creating."

While Jackson understands that Westboro feeds off of the attention that it receives from the media and others, he said he believes that it's still critical to address their hate.

"The media has already given them such a huge platform, and I don't see that stopping," he said. "We're taking the energy that's being poured into them and turning it into something positive. This is how we plan on playing it: Use their energy and let's turn it into something incredibly positive for the LGBT community."

Jackson said he also sees the Equality House as one more step toward bringing about the demise of the organization. In recent months, the group has faced a backlash both from former members -- like Lauren Drain, who released a book about her life in the church and who recently suggested that Westboro's leader, Fred Phelps, may himself be gay -- and city governments, which have passed legislation aimed at limiting the group's ability to picket.

"I think the future for the Westboro Baptist Church is very bleak," he said. "These poor kids will hopefully continue to leave that church. They have a lot of kids over there, but unfortunately they're not in a place where they can make decisions for themselves."

Jackson is confident that Westboro's loss of power and relevance is just one sign of the good things still to come for the LGBT community.

"I love seeing all of these Republicans and all these people who have been anti-gay all this time jumping ship because they know they're on the wrong side of history. It's an amazing thing to see," he said. "I know we have a long way to go in fighting bigotry, but we all know the gays are going to win. It's going to happen."

To find out how you can help support the Equality House and its anti-bullying campaign, click here.

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My personal thanks to Aaron Jackson. Keep on rolling Aaron!

Jack Scott

The Case Against Gay Marriage - Is A Secular Argument Possible?

The video which is embedded below was produced by Wall Street Journal Live. The interviewee is Ralph Reed, best known as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition during the early 1990s. 

Reed was hired by religious broadcaster-cum-Presidential candidate Pat Robertson as executive director of the Christian Coalition in Virginia Beach, Virginia. 

Reed led the organization from 1989 to 1997. Once Federal prosecutors began investigating charges by the Christian Coalition's chief financial officer, Judy Liebert, Reed resigned from his post, and moved to Georgia . The Coalition's finances were collapsing, and the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Election Commission were investigating.

The Coalition organized former Robertson supporters and other religious conservatives to oppose political liberalism. Abandoning confrontational tactics of street protest learned in college, Reed attempted to project a "softer" public face for Christian conservatism, self-described as "guerrilla", putting "enemies" in "body bags" before they even realized he had struck.

Reed appeared on the cover of Time on May 15, 1995, under the title "The Right Hand of God: Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition."

In 1996, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) brought an enforcement action in United States District Court, alleging Reed and the coalition "violated federal campaign finance laws during congressional elections in 1990, 1992 and 1994, and the presidential election in 1992." The FEC prevailed in this action.

One could perhaps be excused if, in light of all this history, Ralph Reed's Christian Values seem to be not very Christian at all at times. Never-the-less, like most right wing Christian Conservatives, Reed has absolutely no problem in presenting his religious views as the only valid view possible on secular (not overtly or specifically religious) social issues

As I have pointed out many times, Reed and his followers are not the only type of Christians which exist in the world and particularly in the United States. There are, in fact, millions of liberal minded Christians like myself who have a totally different view of what Christianity is and should be; a totally different view of the Christian faith to which we are called.

It is clear in the video above that when Reed speaks of "social issues" he is really talking about "religious issues" or a "religious view" of social issues. He clearly has no concept whatsoever that social issues in the United States of America are, by Constitutional Law, secular issues. What I mean by that is that our Constitution forbids the government from promoting religion or religious dogma. Instead, the government of the United States must be a secular (non religious) body.

Reed thinks social issues should be hashed out in the public arena or in the legislatures instead of the courts. As a liberal Christian, I don't necessarily disagree with his "words." I do vehemently disagree with the unspoken meaning he gives to his words. When he says social issues should be legislated in the public arena, he means that the point of view of Conservative Christians should prevail in the courts of public opinion because Conservative Christians are (they believe) the only true Christians and they are uniquely (they believe) called by God to protect and promote Conservative Christianity and thus save the country from the Godless liberals.

When he says he thinks social issues can also be legislated in the chambers of elected representatives, he takes that view because over the last two decades, Christian Conservatives have tried their best to pack state legislatures and the Congress with as many Christian Conservatives as they possibly can. The Federal Courts, on the other hand, are headed by unelected judges who serve for life and who are thus more likely to be guided by the principles of law than by the dogma based views of the Christian Conservative mob.

It has been rightly said that the more educated one becomes the less confident one becomes in his personal viewpoints. This is true because traditional education exposes one to and schools one in the use of critical thinking. Within the philosophical frame of critical social theory, critical thinking is commonly understood to involve commitment to the social and political practice of participatory democracy, willingness to imagine or remain open to considering alternative perspectives, willingness to integrate new or revised perspectives into our ways of thinking and acting, and willingness to foster criticality in others.

Right wing Conservative Christians often choose not to participate in the traditional educational process, and they often choose to limit their reasoning to the "truths" of the Bible which they see as the only real source of truth. They see the truths of the Bible as being in conflict with scientific theory and scientific knowledge. 

Because of these views, right wing Conservative Christians often eschew public schools and colleges in favor of Christian schools and colleges. In these schools and colleges, the Conservative Christian view of science which holds that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old and was created in six 24 hour periods by God is often taught as fact. They also teach that man was created by God in the form in which he presently exists rather than by an evolutionary process. These educational practices make right wing Conservative Christian thought incompatible with critical thinking.

I again hasten to add that right wing Conservative Christians are NOT the only Christians. Liberal Christians are quieter, less confrontational, less evangelical and almost always the product of traditional educations. Liberal Christians see no conflict at all between Biblical scriptures  and evolutionary theories. Liberal Christians see no conflict at all between the Bible and scientific knowledge. This is so because Liberal Christians see the Bible as a good and sufficient guide to faith rather than a science book or a history book. Liberal Christians understand the Bible is not the literal word of God but rather a collection of allegories, the purpose of which is to teach moral lessons, not establish scientific truths.

This profound difference in viewpoints between right wing Conservative Christians and Liberal Christians enables Liberal Christians to take a more tolerant view of the world and of social issues. Liberal Christians understand Christ never said a single word about his feelings concerning homosexuality. In fact, because homosexuality seems to be a congenital condition, Liberal Christians often feel homosexual persons are created by God for a purpose. Thus Liberal Christians, more often than not, join with the secular community in growing support of same sex marriage and the rights of same sex partners under the law.

Reed and people like him talk about social issues, but what they really are talking about are religious issues and how social issues are perceived in the light of their own religious dogma . The fact is, when they make a case against gay marriage, they are making a dogmatic religious case against it. Liberal Christians do not make such a case. They are more apt to see social issues as secular Americans do. As a Liberal Christian, I can point out good and not so good things about gay marriage. For instance, I believe it has been sufficiently proven that a child is best raised by a loving father and a loving mother. However, I think it has also been sufficiently proven that a child is better raised by two loving fathers or two loving mothers than he is being raised by the child welfare and foster care system. The fact is, I do not think one can even make a secular case against same sex marriage. Looked at from a secular viewpoint, same sex marriage is a collection of both good and bad points just as traditional marriage is. Like traditional marriage, same sex marriage can serve society well in spite of its faults.

The fact is, there are many very good people who are Conservative Christians. Many of them are my personal friends. Some are Conservative Christians in name only because grandma and grandpa and mom and dad were Conservative Christians. These people tend to keep their names on the rolls of conservative churches and quietly practice their own more liberal views. Other Conservative Christians have reasoned out on their own that there are things one just cannot know if one is honest with himself. These people may remain on the rolls of  Conservative Christian churches simply because they know no no one can know the truth to as it pertains to the mind of God, but they too tend to keep a low profile and individually practice their own faith more liberal view of faith. My own mother was such a person. A Conservative Christian since childhood she had become traditionally well educated, but she chose to remain in a conservative church as an honest voice of dissent. Raised in the same church, I made a different decision and left the church for a more liberal congregation in which I could feel at home. My mother's critical evaluation of conservative Christianity from inside it was a great value to me in my coming to understand my own views of what it means to be a Christian.

As I have already stated, the is the United States of America and right wing Conservative Christians have a right to their religious views just as more liberal Christians do. However, Conservative Christians do not have a right to impose their conservative religious views on other Americans under the guise of social policy.

Right wing Conservative Christians have so successfully projected themselves as the face of Christianity that many people do not even realize there are such things as Liberal Christians. Many of the people who are falling away from the church are doing so because they cannot define their faith as believing the unbelievable or professing the unknowable as the word of God. My feeling is that everyone needs something bigger than himself to believe in. Those people who realize this about themselves should consider seeking out the Liberal Christian church rather than forsaking religion altogether. There are many of them in every community.

The fact that truly Conservative Christians are, contrary to their propaganda, in the minority in this country is illustrated by the ever increasing number of Americans who support gay rights, who support reproductive choice and who support scientific reasoning and critical thinking.  Conservative Christians are, in fact, fighting a loosing battle. Unfortunately, we may expect the right wingers to become more and more regressive in their thought processes and actions as their social standing becomes less and less stable and as the world, in their view, travels further and further down the road to Hell.

Jack Scott