A Call to Action/Shine Brightly

This  morning I came across a video produced by the Family Research Counsel. I found it to be a particularly repugnant piece of propaganda and live tweeted my responses to the video. I felt that in good conscious, I couldn't let out-right falsehoods go unchallenged. I strongly encourage you to watch the video for yourself.

Interested in encouraging these folks to move from hate toward compassion? Consider an e-mail, tweet, phone call, or letter. Share with them the importance of love, compassion, and acceptance of all of our humanity. Tony Perkins, near the 26:50 mark, says that it is important to be "letting your light shine before men in such a way that they can see your good works." Show them all your good lights. Shine bright. Our futures--your futures--depend on it.

Rev. John Rankin
Theological Educational Institute
P.O. Box 297
West Simsbury, CT 06092
tei@teii.org
860-408-1599

Jeff Buchanan (or here)
Executive Vice President
Exodus International
1-888-264-0877

Joe Dallas
email here
17632 Irvine Blvd.
Suite #220
Tustin, California 92780
714-508-6953

Tony Perkins
Peter Sprigg
Chris Gacek
(email here)
Family Research Counsel
801 G Street, NW
Washington, D.C., 20001
203-393-2100 (p)
202-393-2134 (f)

Redeemed Lives
Rev. Mario Bergner
(email here)
P.O Box 451
Ipswich, MA 01938
978-356-0404

Massachusetts Family Institute
(email)
(web)
781-569-0400

Liberty Legal Foundation
Kelly Shackelford
9040 Executive Park Drive
Suite 200
Knoxville, TN 37923
324-208-9953
(web)
(email)

Carol M. Swain
Vanderbilt University Law School
131-21St Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
615-322-1001 (o)
615-310-8617 (c)
615-322-6631 (f)
(web)
(email)

Rep Vicky Hartzler
(web)
(email)
1023 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-2876 (o)
202-225-0148 (f)

Alliance Defense Fund
Austin R. Nimocks
15100 N. 90th Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
1-800-835-5233
(web)

Mass Resistance
P.O. Box 1612
Waltham, MA 02454
781-890-6001
(web)

Julie Harren Hamilton, Ph.D., LMFT
P.O. Box 1382
West Palm Beach, FL 33402
561-312-7041
(email)
(web)

(read my letter to Dr. Hamilton here)

I'm Married and I Know It

Here is another amusing parody video, complete with cutting social commentary, that recently came my way. You can find out more about the maker of this video at Sean Chapin's Facebook page.

I Have a Dream

There has been a lot of hoopla here in New England the last few days. A storm was coming that threatened to be a disaster. Indeed, there are areas that have seen disaster. People have lost homes, some have died, lots are under water, and tens of thousands are without power. Here in my little corner of New England it wasn't much of a disaster. My house still stands. A few branches are down. The last roses of the season have blown off. All in all, I'm thankful that me and my neighbors have escaped unharmed.

It nearly escaped me that today marks the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It is a speech that I've listened to a lot recently. I've re-read many of Dr. King's speeches with an eye toward the narrative structures he creates for a paper I'm working on. His rhetoric was brilliant then in his time and remains brilliant now, in our times.

He offered up such a language of inclusion -- we are brothers. We are in this together. Together we will have a dream.

There is so much work to be done before we can share that dream. So much need for connection and togetherness. Take a look at the news and our current fascination with budgets and finances. We no longer care to help out our communities. We no longer care to help lift up those who need our help. We are slowly and completely turning our backs on our communities in preference of our selfish needs. The brotherhood,  community, and dream Dr. King spoke of are all becoming rapidly replaced with a singular self-interest in getting what we think we "deserve."

Interested in doing a little background reading on the overwhelming amount of rhetoric that stokes racial fear by the perpetuation of myths and falsehoods. Jeffery Ogbar presents an excellent analysis of just this in a recent article posted on the Root.

Some dream that is. Don't you think?

So today as millions of Americans reflect on Dr. King and the anniversary of his beautiful speech that envisioned all Americans having the same rights and opportunities to succeed and prosper, maybe his words will provoke more Americans to work to make his dream a reality. Because although there is an African-American president and people of color serving in Congress, there are still millions of Americans who barely subsist from day-to-day and conditions are getting worse thanks to Republicans who are more concerned with enriching the wealthy off the backs of the poor. 

Read more of this article here.

Take a minute an listen to the speech. Dream a little. See what happens. I think you'll be glad you did.

Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Do?

I'm watching the CBS Sunday Morning Show. I'm finding that I can't look away from the segment called "Don't Try This at Home." The segment started with roller derby girls running across a track while they  are on fire. They are chronicling a dare devil spectacular in Omaha Nebraska.

The star of the show is  Spanky Spangler. One of the last scenes in the segment involved a car drop. Spanky was suspended by a crane 190 feet in the air. He is dangled for a moment in a car and then dropped, head first, into a pile of vans.

After his drop Spanky said, "When you are an American dare devil it is a sign of of freedom. We are lucky to live in a country like this where you have freedom. Being a daredevil doing what you want to do, no matter how dangerous it is is freedom, it's freedom."

I'm all for a little thrill seeking. I've been known to do a little of it myself (though never have I intentionally set myself on fire nor have I been dropped from a crane in a car). That's not what I take issue with this morning.

Being a dare devil is a sign of freedom? Yes. Sure. In a superficial way having the freedom to run around whilst on fire or being dropped into a pile of cars is a sign of freedom. But is that the kind of freedom we want to celebrate. Is that how we want to spend our freedom?

Over the last couple of days I've been reading some of the major speeches that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave during his lifetime. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, written on April 16, 1963, he wrote:

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flow stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God," And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free," And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." so the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? ...perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Here MLK was talking about extremism, not freedom. The underlying concept is the same. What kind of freedom do we want to have? It's nice (I suppose) to do any number of different dangerous acts. We have a choices that many in this world do not have. How do we want to use that choice? Do we want to use that choice for sensation seeking? Personal gain? How about the betterment of humanity? Making something better for those who come after us?

You have the freedom to choose.