More On The Warren Controversy - Why Invite A Pastor At All?

The kerfuffle over Rick Warren has a new twist. Pundits and observers are postulating whether or not Warren will close his prayer in the traditional Christian way, "in Jesus name". If I had to guess I would say yes, but in reality, who cares? First and foremost having an invocation at a state event seems to go directly against the Constitution, but I understand it is tradition.

As most of you know, I am a Christian, so you might expect I would be OK with Pastor Warren's prayer. Well I am not. I was raised as a Jew, and being Jewish in Dallas, Texas was an interesting experience, especially at my elementary school. Back then, sometime before the dinosaurs died off, we still had each day begin with a prayer. Yup, prayer in public schools, conducted by the principal no less!

I was a nerd, and being skilled in technical things ended up running the school's PA system. Each morning a different student would be selected to give the opening prayer. Most of them closed it with that same phrase, "in Jesus name".

For me it was a slap in my face. I didn't pray "in Jesus name" then and it made me feel like an outcast. The one or two days a year when a Jewish kid would give the prayer were the only times when I felt I could join in and really pray. Kids are pretty literal you know.

I was taught the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag without the words "under God" because that is the way my parents learned it. Those words were added in the mid 1950's to show the world we weren't godless Communists. Thanks Congress! So when I stood up and led the pledge at my Scout meeting I got some really odd stares when I went right past the newly added religious reference.

The point is this. A Pastor, Imam, Rabbi, Priest or Shaman has no place at a governmental event. Whether you know it or not, we are not a Christian nation, we are a secular nation and thank God for that! Otherwise, we would be arguing over the appropriateness of baptism by sprinkling or immersion. And don't get me started on whether you should take communion each week or just once a year!

I sincerely hope someone will actually question the propriety of any religious officials on the dais for the inauguration instead of which one is invited!

A Holiday Blog - Dual Faith Households

I was raised in a dual faith household. My father was Jewish and my mother was a Christian who converted to Judaism. It made for interesting holidays when both my parents families would get together.

On the up side, my dad loved the trappings of Christmas and so we always had a Christmas tree as well as Chanukah lights. Not only did I get Chanukah gifts but Christmas gifts as well! Pretty sweet for a kid I’ll tell you. The down side was having to explain Chanukah to all my gentile friends and having to explain the Christmas tree to my Jewish ones. IN the end most just looked at the double presents bonus and said how lucky I was.

The other up side was getting a real taste of both religions. As I have grown older Religion is a bigger part of my life than it was as a child. Though I had my Bar Mitzvah and attended our temple on a regular basis, as an adult I ended up converting to Christianity. It’s a long story, but the basics are pretty simple. I found a church that really believes its message and tries to follow Jesus teachings. That means a church whose members actually try to live out their faith. Generous, inclusive and unafraid to do what is right and just. My kind of people!

At this time of year I always like to look back on how I got where I am today. I am proud of my dual faith traditions. It makes me even more informed on the roots of Christianity and I am often asked to share that with my friends.

This Christmas I will be attending the late Christmas Eve service at our church, a United Church of Christ. It will be filled with song and music and pageantry and lots of friends. I will ring in another Christmas with memories of my menorah and Christmas tree and my family who took enough time to explain their faith journey to me. For that I am truly grateful at this special time of year.
Happy holidays and blessings to your all.

A Day Without Gays? Not This Time.

I scanned the news this morning looking for the huge reaction to all the LGBT people calling in sick for the "Day Without a Gay" protest. I found one article on Yahoo news (AP) that said what I figured would happen. Most people had no idea it was even taking place.

Big civil disobedience actions or work stoppages, boycotts, etc. can be effective, but when they are thrown together without enough planning and especially without enough PUBLICITY, they go unnoticed. So it was wi th the “Day Without a Gay”.

A group from San Francisco and elsewhere, tied together by the web and a Facebook page organized the action. According to their material online, they had 144,000 confirmed participants nationwide. Though this sounds like a formidable number, in the grand scheme of things it is a statistical “de minimis”, in other words, nada. That’s the problem. To really get notoriety, any such action would have to get at least a statistically significant number. If Kinsey is to be believed we represent around 10% of the population as a whole. (Though this number is widely disputed) Even given a number like 5% of the US population being LGBT, it would take a big percentage of them calling in sick to get attention.

Given enough time and a whole lot of promotion, the news media would have picked up on the narrative and the story would have a chance to take off. This idea, a good one, was doomed because it was not given enough time to work. Perhaps 6 months from now it could. Maybe sometime around Gay Pride Day it could work given enough media buzz and viral push, but without that it will be a talking point for our opponents. They can now say, "look at what a small impact the LGBT community has on everyday society". And they will seem to be proven right.

Of course the biggest obstacle to this action is the closet. Unless a person is sufficiently “out” not showing up for work would be a dead giveaway that they might be gay or lesbian. Given sufficient publicity, any absentee might be suspect. That fact might cause a greater number of straight people to show up even if they were legitimately sick. It’s humorous but highlights the problem.

Kitchen table activism is my kind of stuff, the AIDS Memorial Quilt started that way and it has done wonders in raising the consciousness of America to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Going off half-cocked with a good idea but poor execution and planning does the opposite. It makes us look weak and disorganized as a movement.

My suggestion to the organizers is, fall back, plan better and get some media allies to start telling the story. The narrative is a good one, "LGBT citizens are vital parts of American life and without them the whole country would be affected". That is the real story, and that is the truth.

A Thought on World AIDS Day

Twenty years ago at a summit of health ministers from around the world, they decided to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS by declaring December 1 as World AIDS Day. Since that time much progress has been made on AIDS treatment but so far no cure has been found.

That is an important thing to remember. Especially in light of a recent report. The report, released just ahead of World AIDS Day on Monday, found while Massachusetts has had success battling the spread of the disease among injection drug users and heterosexual men and women, it has had less success among gay and bisexual men. More than 50% of new HIV infections between 2004 and 2006 were among gay and bisexual men.

This is amazing to me. The gay and bisexual communities have been living with the problems of AIDS for longer than anyone else. We know how to prevent the disease and yet we are still getting infected at a higher rate. What is going wrong?

Well as I have been reading an interesting book on "The Science of Fear" in which the author notes that people make decisions based on either their "gut" or their "head". Our "head" or intellect knows how to protect ourselves, but our "gut" emotions tell us "unprotected sex feels good". Irrationally, we conclude if it feels good it can't be bad and we shut off our brains.

How can we change this? Well it will not be easy, but it worked when the epidemic first started and it can work now. We need to hammer the message home that unprotected sex is not only wrong, but not as much fun. Because our fear of AIDS used to be stronger, unprotected sex felt risky and not as good. Today, with the insane barrage of "bareback" videos and websites, we are being convinced that unprotected sex is "better". We need to de-eroticise it and start eroticizing safer-sex before we fall victim to another wave of AIDS deaths.

Am I a killjoy? Hell no, just someone who wants his friends to be around for a long time so we can grow old together.

Here's my suggestion, start eroticising safer-sex. Next time you choose a video, make sure it's safe sex only. Next time you masturbate, wear a condom. If you do it often enough, you will come to associate the condom with sexual pleasure and half the battle will be won.