Tag Archives: marriage amendment

April 24, 2012 · 9:46 pm

Political Folly- The Season of the Lunatic is Upon Us

Looks like we’re going to be able to hunt wolves in Minnesota, legislators are in the process of passing legislation to allow wolf hunting. My favorite quote on this issue;

“This would be just one more way to continue the intrigue and enjoyment many people get out of hunting as well as a creative way to help control the coyote population.” Westrom said people have been telling him for years how much fun they had hunting wolves from aircraft in the 1960s and 1970s. “I want to bring back something that younger generations have never had the chance to experience.”

Are we going to shoot buffalo from trains too? Intrigue and enjoyment of blasting wolves from a plane, I wasn’t aware that we had that many pilot-hunters around. Whatever you thoughts on this issue are, pro or against, can we agree that is about as important as studying possum populations in urban forests in terms of things the legislators in St. Paul should be worrying about?

Speaking of priorities, our legislators also found time to pass a new law allowing Minnesotans to buy the “good” fireworks that we’d all been buying in Wisconsin anyway. Again, so glad that we had the time to pass this critical piece of legislation, it’s been too long since we were able to legally shoot fireworks into the summer sky. Thank G-d we don’t have to cross over to Wisconsin anymore. Gonna put more than one Badger state business out of business me things.

And what the hell people, since wasting the taxpayers time and money seems to be the order of the day, we couldn’t find time to legalize booze and car sales on Sunday. Where are your bloody priorities you worthless incumbent paper tigers.

Giving away our tax dollars that’s where. State is broke, the legislators are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and boom, along comes Roger Goodell and the NFL to hold a gun to these nimwits heads and demand $500M of our tax money for their private business. Yup we’re about to award Ziggy Wilf and the NFL half a billion dollars to build the NFL a new stadium here in Minnesota. Look, I love sports, I’ve loved the NFL in the past and I’ve been known to get whipped up for the Vikings but really? We have $550M lying around to give to one of the richest and most successful professional entertainment companies on the planet? I don’t see it. Good for the people of Los Angeles for not giving in to these clowns, hold your ground LA no one needs one of these franchises until they can pay their own way, and they can, looking at their balance sheets. For those of you from out of state, the issue was DOA this year until Roger Goodell came to town and held a gun to our heads.

Was it just me or did we have deficit to worry about just recently, oh that’s right we raided the schools to balance our budget. My mistake.

Some other gems from the most recent legislative session?

  • Marriage amendment on the November ballot, because hate is a family value.
  • Voter ID amendment. This is one of my favorites, by most accounts voter fraud in Minnesota accounts for 5 to 10 ballots a year. Thank goodness my faith in elections will be restored buy this POS legislation.
  • We’re working on legislation to enact what are called “barrier” laws to keep women from taking abortion inducing drugs. The new requirement they’re working would mandate that a Doctor be present, not just when the woman gets the prescription, but when she actually takes the pill and swallows it. This we’re told is a good thing for mothers and babies in Minnesota. Makes my head explode just thinking about that line. My wife, who BTW is very conservative on most issues and yet clearly sees this as yet another attack on women and has suggested that if they allow a RN to be present instead she’ll do house calls and not charge a nickel. Rebel.

When the Tea Party, who are about as non-partisan as James Carville, started making noise last election we were all led to believe they were all about fiscal responsibility and would not be pushing social issues and their conservative agenda. Well, surprise they’ve not done a thing about the budget, after all that’s a hard one, you can’t just cut spending and not raise taxes like they planned, that stupid thing called math got in the way. So instead they went to work on issues to rally their base, other far right zealots and here we are.

I saw an interesting video clip somewhere where a bunch of Tea Party types were out protesting the government. Cut spending, blah blah. Another clip was of the Occupy Wall Street folks, also protesting, this time big financial institutions, camera pans up and bazinga, they’re protesting in front of the same building.

I swear my head is going to explode.

BTW, there might be a way for your head not explode in Minnesota.

Independence Party of Minnesota.

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February 29, 2012 · 9:01 pm

Jewish Community, Inclusive of All Views?

The Twin Cities Jewish community is rallying against the proposed marriage amendment coming up in November. You can check out the article and the information about the rally here:

Help Defeat The Marriage Amendment with the Jewish Community.

Reading the article Madeline Harms writes “In order to defeat the amendment, we need EVERYONE who believes that marriage is a fundamental human right to come to the polls this November and vote NO.”

I’m having some trouble with the tone and the assertions in these statements and I have to comment.

I’m going to assume that my position on same sex marriage is well established here, I’ve written many pieces about my unwavering support for marriage equality and for an end to discrimination against Gay people. Should I find my way to my polling station on the first Tuesday in November I will be voting against it. Given ok?

But I think Ms. Harms has over-reached in her assertions here, and it doesn’t help and ins some cases may even offend.

To begin with, can we stop calling marriage a “fundamental human right”. In the United States, no one has the “right” to be married. There are certain benefits, imposed by government on certain kinds of formal relationships. (that would be “marriage” Cletus) Denying those rights, those social and statutory benefits based on how you view those relationships is really the argument at hand. Lets keep the “rights” word out of it. You don’t have a right to be married but you have a right not to be discriminated against in eyes of the state simply because of orientation. That’s what this argument should be about.

Nuff on that one.

My bigger issue with this article is wording of the headline,

“Help defeat… with the Jewish Community.”

This headline would lead you to believe that the Jewish Community is lock step in favor of marriage equality, when in fact we are not. Contrary to many opinions, Jews have diverse political views and the community is not uniform in political thought, just like any other community of faith we have varied opinions.  In fact there are many branches of Judaism; ultra-orthodox, Hassidic to name few who are against anything but traditional marriage, and strongly oppose any kind of Gay anything. I’m not saying it’s right, it just i But even in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist congregations, almost of all which have come out strongly against this amendment there are members who are conservative and who I’m sure feel like they don’t have a much of a voice when politics and issues like this are discussed at the local Shul.

I may be knit picking here,  but I worry about sweeping generalizations regarding the political and social opinions of the Jewish People. We Jews have a concept of Klal Yisrael, the People of Israel. It’s a concept that roughly says “we’re one people”. It implies a spiritual, historical and cultural connection that transcends denomination and background. It’s the idea which causes Israel to assimilate immigrants from the most cultured European capitals and the most backwards medieval Yemeni villages. It sees Black Ethiopians immigrants and White Russian immigrants in the same army unit. It says we are inclusive and we are one people.

But, it does not imply that we are of one mind, especially not when it comes to politics.

The concept of Klal Yisrael has certainly been strained of late, especially in Israel where Ultra Orthodox and Secular Israeli’s have been at each other’s throats over the very nature of the State recently, is it a secular democratic state or a religious theocracy. For that matter, who is or isn’t a Jew, at the very core of this argument

My Dad used to tell a joke, it’s dated now, but it makes my point. Richard Nixon and Golda Meir were chatting one day and Nixon commented how much more difficult it was for him run a country of 400 million people that it was for her to her country with it’s small population of 5 million.   “But” Golda replied, “you have 400 million citizens, I have 5 million Prime Ministers”. Anyone who’s ever spent more than a few minutes talking politics with Jews, or follows Israeli politics understands fully the nuance here.

And despite the fact that I’m a fat old liberal myself, I know there are conservatives, even in my synagogue and I know that on social issues their views are squashed. I think it would be very difficult for a person with conservative political views to feel at home in most American Synagogues, and frankly this wrong. They’d have to keep their opinions to themselves. As a matter of fact, they’re even discounted at times with a “Jewish values” argument. I just couldn’t imagine sitting at post Shabbat service luncheon, talking current events and suggesting that I might be Pro-Life or supportive of traditional marriage. It would be, honestly, pretty danged ugly.

I find this interesting because, when I to go out into the world and look at the political opinions of people in the general population I would find define themselves as pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, supportive of immigrants rights, pro-gun control, and I would find that they align very well with most Jews personal politics and the stance their synagogues take in public debate. This alignment works is strong until, well, until you introduce support for Israel, and all of sudden on that issue, the coalition between Liberals and Jews falls apart.

If you were interested in really stirring up the pot at a Shabbat lunch, try proposing divestment from Israel, a hot topic on college campuses these days. On issues of Israel Jews are far more closely aligned with the Conservatives, and the more Conservative (and more Christian one could argue) the stronger the support. Likud politicians get this in spades and do a lot of catering to the Conservatives. Jews in America have a harder time with it.

My point: it’s not accurate to invite folks to  “join the Jewish community” in support of any political activity. It would be better to say “join members of the Jewish community”. Lets be honest here, when it comes to politics and social issues our opinions and our opinions are far from aligned, which is exactly how it should be.

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May 23, 2011 · 8:42 pm

Repairing the world, my, and your responsibility

I received an email this afternoon, regarding my posting concerning same sex marriage.

“Why do you even waste time writing about this, you’re not Gay, this is a Gay issue. Seriously why do you care?”

It was from a reader I don’t know very well.

Following is my response. In short, I am compelled too take on this issue.

In the long answer:

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel taught; “the opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.”

The older I get, the more I realize just how true this statement is.

A little background for my readers, in case you’re not familiar with the good Rabbi. He was probably the most influential Jewish theologian of the 20th century. Heschel was born in Poland in 1907, arrested by the Gestapo in Frankfurt in 1938 where he was teaching at a Jewish seminary.  He was deported to Poland, he was evacuated to London 6 weeks before the German invasion of Poland in 1939 by Julian Morgenstern, president of the Hebrew Union College, the Reform Movements primary seminary. Morgenstern, who had enough vision to see what was coming in Europe, engaged in an effort to rescue as many prominent scholars from the Nazi’s as he could. From London Heschel eventually made his way to New York and finally to Cincinnati where began teaching at the Hebrew Union College, the main seminary of the Reform Movement in the United States.

He was lucky he was rescued. His mother and three sisters were murdered by the Nazi’s. During his life Heschel never returned to Germany, Poland or Austria. “If I should go to Poland or Germany, every stone, every tree would remind me of contempt, hatred, murder, of children killed, of mothers burned alive, of human beings asphyxiated.”

Despite these personal challenges, Heschel lived and taught the ideals of Tikkun Olam, the idea that since creation, the world has been broken, and it is the responsibility of every Jew to participate in it’s repair. Literal translation is Repairing the World. For Heschel this responsibility extended to the world at large, and was implemented through his active participation in social justice, in his case marching with Dr. King during the civil rights struggles and his opposition to the Viet Nam war. One of my favorite quotes from the Rabbi, “When I marched in Selma, my legs were praying.”

This link to social justice, according the Heschel’s work, goes to back to the commandment that we Jews are to remember when we were slaves in Egypt and we are to experience of the redemption from that condition, which is recalled not only at Passover, but ever day in the liturgy of daily prayers. This experience is supposed to remind us that we, all people, are harmed when anyone group or individual is harmed.

One of the more profound teachings for me, I quoted above, and I’ll repeat it, “the opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.” The atrocities of the Holocaust, and atrocities of every other mass murder or genocidal murderous rampage, I would argue has been enabled by indifference.

Rabbi Heschel taught that in our lives we would be presented with “sacred moments” and that the goal of education, spiritual living etc, is not simply to amass great knowledge and live some hollow life of piety, but with out practical application. It is the goal of education and spirituality to in fact, prepare us for these moments, and to help us to understand them so we do the right thing.

It seems in every generation we find ourselves facing these choices, choices to stand up, be heard and make a difference, to call out an injustice and to make our position known in the hopes that we might influence even one other person, and in doing so, in some small way, act to correct the injustice.

Rabbi Heschel said “all it takes is one person, and another, and another, and another to start a movement.”  I believe that when we take on the cause of the weakest among us and embrace them and lend them our own strength, we are in fact, participating in the divine plan of Tikkun Olam, the repair of a world that is broken. To ignore, to come up with excuses; not my people, not my problem, is to participate that which is opposite of good and contrary to what is right.

In my life I’ve had opportunities to embrace causes, some I’ve acted right, some I’ve let my indifference rule the day. In this case, I believe the civil right of GLBT people are being attacked in what is the civil rights issue of this time. The legislators and homophobic defense of marriage crowd who are attempting to put a stop to what they don’t like will be on the wrong side of history, even if they win this battle. The youth, and I mean 30 somthings, in poll after poll don’t see same sex marriage as much of an issue. It’s the 50 and older crowd who are most against it.

These legislators, I know, will wind up much like the legislators in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi who, in the period after the Civil War and up until the Supreme Court action of 1960’s made inter-racial marriage a crime, in Florida a felony, with prison terms. The reasons were the same as those being put forward for same sex marriage, G-d’s law.

Do you really think that if the Supreme Court had not stepped in 1968 and overturned these laws, along with imposing de-segregation, and striking down Jim Crow laws that white Southerners would have come to there senses and “given” African-American’s rights? I don’t.

This is a time and place where I want to be on the right side, the side of defending those whose rights are in jeopardy. G-d forbid that my kids would remember me as a homophobe, in the way I remember my father and my grandmothers as racists. And even worse, what if one of my children or grandchildren are Gay? Why wouldn’t I want them to feel loved and accepted in their own family. How would I face them if I were to tell them I don’t think their relationship is beneficial to society?

Since I’m quoting Rabbis, I’m closing with a quote from Rabbi Tarfon who lived and taught in Israel  in the period immediately after the destruction of the second Temple, he had the following teaching regarding this noble work of Tikkun OIam:

“You are not obliged to finish this work, but neither are you free to avoid it.”

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