Jedi Gay Tolerance?

\"Be careful, California, you're supposed to be the 'Crazy State!' The kind of wild, out-there one.\"
-Eddie Izzard

You know another word for Gay people in this country?
Citizens.
Citizens who are entitled to those same precious rights of \"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness\" that the rest of us cherish.
And clergy aren't the only people who can marry folks: ship captains, judges, Justices of the Peace (or are they the same thing?); religion doesn't even have to enter into it.
The worst part of it is, IMHO, is that Prop 8 shouldn't even have been put on the ballot, 'cause it didn't go thru the proper channels for it. And now the State Supreme Court is involved.
I'm from L.A., originally, and some of my best friends have been gay. They're good people. It hurts my soul that they should be deprived of this right.

Kyp wrote:

And though it is a small matter, the proper plural of Jedi is Jedi.

I'm actually a complete geek for linguistics, so it's not that small a matter to me, Master Kyp. And for that, I thank you for bringing that up.

A.L.M., while I appreciate your sentiment, the protection of \"justice\" is nevertheless still one of our duties. If slavery was still legal, but there was no war occurring, should we still let it slide on the grounds of peace? I know I wouldn't, as it's discrimination against one group of people for the benefit of another.

I do believe there is a difference between blind morality by tradition and authorities' declaration, and morality by conscience and - in many respects - logic and reason. We determine \"good\" and \"bad\" by what helps our society, and what damages it.

Two examples.

1) A school bans baggy jeans and do-rags, believing them to promote gangs. While this is a bit extreme, this is an attempt to protect the school from crime and possible harm dealt to the students, should \"rival gangs\" encounter and try to kill one another. While a bit obsessive, this is in hopes of preventing death, therefore it is technically good.

2) The government issues a statement that all individuals over 18 must support their country in its economy (by having a job) or military (by joining the service). Any who are physically or mentally unfit to do either, or who simply will not, will be executed. While this seems to be for the benefit of society, it is harming other people, and therefore wrong.

My issue here is the fact that we are pulling these conversation to relate to scociety. I feel my path as a Jedi should not be affected by any scociety. My path of \"peace and Justice\" only extends to humanity and mother nature.

wolves's kill other wolves and no one goes out there on a crusade to stop them and make them start peace conferences. its natural. Human on human conflicts is natural. When it threatens the existence of the human race or the earth or basic humanitarian rights, then I feel should take a stand. But simply arguing of sexual preferences seems to me a little redundant and pointless.

But this is only my point of view. in case you have never read you basic humanitarian rights (as declared by the United Nations), I suggest looking them up. You will be amazed I think at what you legally can do.

un.org/Overview/rights.html

You're still failing to see the point, and that is that the government has absolutely no right to deny rights and freedoms from one person or group of people that another person or group of people is allowed. It has nothing to do with relation to a society... I would take the same stance regardless of what society I found myself in. Allow me to simplify this, and move it out of the focus of \"gay rights\" because I think you're getting hung up on whether or not we should agree with homosexuality.

Let's examine a hypothetical example. There are two children of the same age, who both want to be allowed the right to play on a park playground. One of the children is \"normal\", the other child has dyed purple hair. The \"normal\" child is granted the right to play on the playground, but the child with the purple hair is not allowed simply because of their personal hair color preference. The person who let the \"normal\" child play on the playground happens to not like \"different\" child's personal preference for unnaturally-colored hair, and that is their reason for dis-allowing the \"different\" child from playing. Would you call this a fair and just arrangement? Of course not.

Looking back at the actual issue, it is no different. Before you spend time attempting to produce an excuse for why you think it is different, remember... This \"different\"(homosexual) group of people is not allowed the same rights and freedoms as the \"normal\"(heterosexual) group of people, simply because the group(the government) \"allowing\" the \"normal\" group of people their rights to marry happen to \"not like\" the \"different\"(homosexual) group's personal preferences. Sure, the reasons spouted are based on outdated books written by cattle-sacrificing primitives, under the guise of \"religious morality\", but at it's core the issue is NO different from my hypothetical example. As Br. John has often said, \"Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander\".

Cygnus wrote:

...Also, A.L.M. It's obvious from paying attention to anti-gay groups that they won't stop at denying marriage, most of these groups want nothing less than the execution of Homosexuals everywhere, and bisexuals, and then anyone who's habits or preferences different from what they decide is acceptable...

I Find this to be disturbingly true. They are afraid that what they know, what they are comfortable with, is going to change. The word HOMOPHOBIA is all too often just translated into intolerance of homosexuality. Now im pretty sure that we all know what '-phobia' means. It is the suffix for fear. If someone is homophobic then they are frightened of homosexuality,since this contradicts with what they are comfortable with it causes rebellion and intolerance, often bringing forth violence against the \"threat\". We have a tendency to focus on the effects rather than the cause of the effect. We need to show those that are Homophobic that there is nothing to fear. By doing this we have a chance of breaking down intolerance and thus finding an equal balance. As keepers of the Peace we must first institute it and maintain it.

\"The suffering of one man is the suffering of all. Distances are irrelevant to injustice. If not stopped soon enough, evil eventually reaches out to engulf all men, whether they have opposed it or ignored it.\"

-Obi-wan Kenobi

I find this saying to be the wisest and truest statement as to why we as Jedi MUST take a stand. Now all though the voting on Prop 8 has passed im sure there will be other encounters of the same discrimination. Learn from your mistakes and you will better know how to deal with the impending battle against injustice.

Here are a couple of sayings from very wise people with which i believe their words pertain to this matter.


\"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.\"
-> Carl Jung



\"Nothing is worse than active ignorance!\"
-> Goethe



\"Destruction is the work of an afternoon.
Creation is the work of a lifetime.\"
-Unknown

When Religion Becomes Insanity

Read on:

A Gospel of Hate

Protest-leading pastor wants the masses to know they’re going to hell.

Associated Press/June 11, 2006
By Matt Sedensky

Ogden, Iowa — The soldier’s flag-draped casket is set on the gymnasium floor, below the unlit scoreboard, before bleachers crowded with mourners.

They are there for Sgt. Daniel Sesker, the young man known for an infectious laugh and a wide smile, his life taken by an improvised explosive device outside Tikrit. Inside his high school, those who loved him are just beginning to grieve.

Outside, near a cornfield awaiting planting, picketers thank God for Daniel Sesker’s death, talk approvingly of his entrance into hell and mock the mourners. Amid gusting winds, they struggle to hold up signs that read “Thank God for IEDs” and “God Hates Your Tears.”

And back home in Kansas, tucked away in an office over Westboro Baptist Church, Pastor Fred Phelps need only think of what he’s done and cracks a smile. He has, for 15 years, directed a campaign unlike any other.

At curbsides, outside funerals and before state capitols, Phelps and his followers have branded this a nation of sinners, of people bound to live eternity in a fiery hell. They have called homosexuals the disgusting face of evil and fallen U.S. soldiers proof of God’s wrath. They’ve sneered at every other faith.

They are unapologetic in delivering their message and have no hope of persuading you. It’s simply their duty, they believe, to let it be known that God hates you. That you’re going to hell. That you’re wrong and Fred’s right.

Phelps and his followers began appearing last June outside funerals of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. They’ve already attended about 100 — offending communities and lawmakers so thoroughly that legislatures in 31 states have debated bills to curb such protests, and Congress passed a law restricting demonstrations at national cemeteries. President George W. Bush signed the bill on Memorial Day.

Westboro’s protesters first gained widespread attention in 1998. A University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard, had been lashed to a split-rail post, pistol-whipped and left in near-freezing temperatures — apparently because he was gay. Millions were horrified. But not Phelps.

He and his followers showed up at the funeral with signs bearing their trademark message: “God Hates Fags.” They chanted “Fags die, God laughs.”

There have been thousands of protests since — at the funerals of homosexuals, but also at memorials for Mister Rogers, victims of Sept. 11 and West Virginia miners. There have been more than 25,000 such demonstrations, by the church’s count.

No army of zealots is waging this campaign. Westboro Baptist has about 75 members, nearly all of them Phelps’ relatives.

Those who choose to stay in the Topeka, Kan., church must be willing not only to live an insular life but to thrive on it. They must give at least 10 percent of their earnings to the church and spend thousands more traveling to spread its message.

Their belief in predestination — the idea that God determined at the time of one’s creation whether they were bound for heaven or hell — is not unique. It stems from John Calvin’s branch of the 16th century Protestant Reformation and is taught in mainstream churches.

Where Westboro parts ways is its emphasis on God’s hatred and the way it spreads this message. Members believe they must alert the world’s depraved sinners of their fate even though such people have no chance of going to heaven. They’re not doing this to save you — they’re doing it to save themselves.

The Westboro flock is out there all alone, both in beliefs and in methods. No other religious group has stepped forward to join them.

In the small sanctuary at Westboro Baptist — amid wood paneling, mauve carpeting and burnt-red cushions that recall a 1970s living room more than a house of worship — the congregation prays all of God’s chosen people will hear the call and make their way to this church. When the last person comes, they believe, Christ will return and the world will end.

The fluorescent lights shine on no crosses or paintings or statues, just a world map and a few signs. “Thank God for Maimed Soldiers,” reads one.

Two hymns sung in perfect harmony serve as bookends for the service. The centerpiece is an impassioned sermon by the lanky, 76-year-old Phelps. As he often does, he fixates on the media and on lawmakers’ attempts to silence him. He talks of God’s hatred and celebrates deadly events so many others mourn.

“We pray for more tornadoes, we pray for more hurricanes, that Katrina’s just a tiny little preamble,” he says near his closing. “That’s what we pray for.”

The path that brought Fred Phelps to this point is not a straight one.

He grew up a Methodist and enjoyed a childhood in which, he says, he was “happy as a duck.”

Thetis Hudson, an 85-year-old Meridian, Miss., woman, lived across the street from Phelps’ boyhood home. She remembers his mother playing the piano and his father working as a railroad detective.

“They were good people. If you were going to pick a typical American family, you would have picked them,” Hudson said. “There was no hate.”

Fred was 5 when his aunt came, sat him down and told him his mother “had gone with the angels to be with God in heaven.” He doesn’t remember crying.

Phelps was bound for West Point when he attended a Methodist revival meeting and said he felt a calling to preach.

Phelps became a civil rights attorney, honored by minority groups for his dedication to cases of poor blacks. But he picketed the funeral of Coretta Scott King and ultimately was disbarred from state courts for improprieties.

He ran as a Democrat for mayor, governor and senator and opened his law office to staffers on Al Gore’s 1988 presidential bid. But he failed in each campaign.

He raised 13 children, nine of whom defend him unwaveringly. Others tell of an abusive, unstable patriarch driven to fits of rage by nearly anything.

Family, for Fred Phelps, is second to his precepts.

Phelps’ steps are cautious, his stare vacant, his speech slightly drawled. At a family picnic, when others line up for food, he stays behind. He sits quiet most of the time, holding a 4-month-old great-granddaughter.

His demeanor shifts easily, quickly. He laughs, then looks sullen. Calls a granddaughter “love bug,” then launches a brief tirade against Jews.

Many of Phelps’ detractors admit he is brilliant. He has a habit of making it known by belittling those who question him.

“That’s one of the luxuries of being 100 percent right, absolutely 100 percent right,” he said.

Phelps’ followers take that message to heart.

“They believe that what my dad says is law. He’s the shepherd of the flock, and he gets his inspiration from the Bible — he’s the voice of God on Earth,” said the former Dortha Phelps, an estranged daughter who has taken the surname Bird to signify her freedom from the family.

Neither Phelps nor his congregants claim to be without sin, but the pastor is infuriated when asked about their wrongdoings. Why are some sins different? Why are followers forgiven for sins that would gain an outsider the label of hellbound whore?

Phelps rises from his chair and walks away.

It’s an unseasonably cold day in Ogden, Iowa, outside the funeral of Daniel Sesker. Shirley Phelps-Roper has an American flag tucked in the waistband of her sweatpants, dragging it on the asphalt as she walks. Westboro’s emissaries pose for snapshots like they’re at a scenic lookout.

“I enjoy this,” Phelps-Roper said. “This makes my day.”

Her father is at home. The church library is nearby, and so is one of his favorite books — John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress.”

He will die soon. His lifetime of preaching God’s hate, he believes, has earned his place in heaven. And as his spirit ascends, protesters, no doubt, will assemble to celebrate his death.

Phelps has made it clear he is overjoyed by the prospect. Bring a sign, he implores. Dance on my grave, spit on my casket, laugh at my passing.

He knows the truth, he says. And in heaven, he’ll just smile.

Ahh yes... the Westboro Baptist \"Church\". Yet another cult that I am personally at war with, if you can call it that. These are the kinds of groups that something has to be done about. Anything but inaction and complacency. On my list of \"Missions\" if you choose to call them that is counter-protesting this hateful group. And it's not just the gay community they target... they are willing to preach \"God's Hate\" for anything they don't see as valid in their very narrow-minded view.

Alright. So what do we do? Besides this discussing and analyzing the world's problems what do we do to stop it? Is this going to be a temple of action? Are we as Jedi agreeing that something must be done that we should take action now?

For agree with that. If you want to take action and make a difference than let us do it and not only sit and hope for someone else to.