John Lennon

Today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. From both of us here at GOP, let's pay homage to a singer/song writer whose message is still incredibly relevant.

Our favorite song sums up everything we could hope to say about life, the universe... and everything.

Tithing... stupid.

When I was a little kid, I dutifully saved my pennies each week to drop in the basket that was passed around church. I had visions of poor orphan children, shivering without coats, or starving kids with swollen bellies in African villages, and I imagined that my few coins went towards feeding and clothing the poor of the world. I was proud to drop in all that I owned.

I imagined myself to be like the cute little mouse from Robin Hood, giving up her last farthing to help with the poor. Fast forward to 3:14.

Then one day, our priest gave a homily on tithing. Tithing is the practice of giving some portion of your income, usually 10% to the church. I remember the priest emphasizing that this should be 10% of your income BEFORE taxes, BEFORE any other spending. I was flabbergasted. I asked my mom where my money went that I faithfully put into the baskets each week. When she told me it went to our church, I felt lied to. My mom actually said that she chose to give some portion of her income to our church, but most of her 10% actually went to various charities she believed in. That makes sense to me.

Tithing has existed for ages, dating waaaaaay back to Jesus time. Churches have always needed a way to guilt parishioners into giving them enough money to operate. I believe that donating to valuable non-profit organizations is important, but contributing to an organized religion doesn't seem like a charitable cause to me.

Writing about tithing seems like it should be a non-issue to me. After all, I don't belong to a religion. Why should I care? Well, I care about poor people being guilted into giving away their hard earned money to an organization that doesn't actually do any good for people. Why not take that 10% and give it to your local school or homeless shelter or Doctors Without Borders?

Plus, I thought I should write about tithing because it represents the very first crack in my faith as a small child. What was the first crack in your faith/belief in god or religion?

Thank you Tim Gunn

Since I already touched on the subject of homophobia and gay bashing recently, I won't talk much more about it except to highlight a couple things that I've seen recently that at least make me feel more positive about America's attitude toward the LGBTQ community. Even though Congress messed up big time on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," at least a new CNN poll show that at least half of America now supports gay marriage. Here's my favorite part of the article I read...

This trend will continue. Nationally, a majority of people under age 30 support same-sex marriage. And this is not because of overwhelming majorities found in more liberal states that skew the national picture: our research shows that a majority of young people in almost every state support it. As new voters come of age, and as their older counterparts exit the voting pool, it’s likely that support will increase, pushing more states over the halfway mark.

That's great news. Everybody just needs to ignore what is the very LOUD, but minority voice on this issue. The other thing I'd like to share is this wonderful and very touching video from Tim Gunn. In it, he has a message for LGBTQ teens..."it gets better." He urges them to seek help if they are in despair, and shares a very personal story of his own experience. I loved Tim Gunn anyway, but this just secured him a place in my heart forever.

It's not totally on topic for this blog, but it was so uplifting, I just thought I'd share.

Can I pray for you?

I work as a restaurant server. Sad, but true.

Yesterday, I was working the lunch shift and waited on these two very sweet, but incredibly trying middle-aged women. I noticed them praying before they ate their bread and made sure not to disturb them. Later, after I answered their 9,000 questions and satisfied their inane requests and FINALLY took their order, one of the women says, "Now, my dear....we already prayed over our food, but we'll pray again when our meal comes. And I want to ask you, is there anything we can pray about for you?"

I'll take this kitten's prayers, thanks. He's cuter.

These are very nice women, otherwise, and I depend on their tip, so I just say, "That's very sweet of you, but I'm just fine, thank you. You don't need to pray for me."

"Are you sure? Any family we can pray for? You must have something!"

"No, ma'am, I'm just fine on prayers. But thank you so much for thinking of me." And I walk away.

I was hoping that would be the end of it, but NO! When I come back to check on them during their meal, I ask if everything is OK. Church lady says she has a big problem.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry, ma'am, what is it?"

"I am just so troubled. I can't believe there's nothing about which we can pray for you."

"Trust me, that's very sweet, but I've got two grandmas and a mother who I know are praying for me every day. I'm covered." That at least made them laugh.

"Ohhhhhh, are they Christian? What church do they go to?" (Now what the fuck difference would it make if my parents are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist? My family is Catholic, but I had a feeling that this lady wouldn't consider that Christian)

"My family is back in Iowa, actually..."

"OHHHHHHH.... Now how old are you? Are you in college or are you done with school? What are you doing in Los Angeles?" She bombards me with questions until she decides that she will pray that I have success in my career. Oddly enough, they assumed I was an actor even though I told them I was a writer (I'm tired of having that conversation EVERY day with customers).

Maybe I should have told her that I wrote a blog and that she should pray that I get more readers. Here's my point:  

What do you say when someone asks to pray for you?

Since I was at work, I had to be polite. What could I have said? Don't waste your time? What's the point? Do you really think you have a direct line of communication with an invisible, fictitious omnipotent being that has direct influence over your life and the lives of others? Are you so freaking special that your prayers mean more than the prayers of millions of others? Are you that narcissistic? I guess, in this case, that was true. These women also asked that I refrigerate and hold their leftover food until they got back from the movies. So, yeah.

Homophobia is Deadly

By now, I'm sure everyone has heard about Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshman who committed suicide after his dorm roommate publicized a video of his private sexual encounter online.

I hope, hope, hope that the young man who was Tyler's roommate thought of his harassment as just a prank. I hope that his behavior was not the result of bigotry, but just immaturity. However, since Tyler committed suicide, I think that all kinds of anti-gay rhetoric has bubbled to the surface. I do love that celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris are calling out to gay teens to be strong and be proud.

As someone who was pretty depressed as a teen, my message to young people is that it GETS BETTER. Leave your home town, leave the people who make you sad, form your own family of close friends, go to a town that's friendlier to you. Plus, as you grow older, you'll find that you become less sensitive, events seem to affect you less. You gain a little perspective.

What happened to Tyler though, was enough to ruin any adult. The breech of trust, the invasion of privacy. I'm sure Tyler felt like he'd been violated. That would be enough to deeply disturb any individual. And for Tyler, with all the anti-gay rhetoric in the media, it would seem like life wouldn't get any better. I'm sure that he thought that college would be 10x better than high school. I'm sure he went in with a lot of hope, only to be completely let down.

I saw a video over at The Friendly Atheist with an interview between Anderson Cooper and the Michigan Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Shirvell. For the past 6 months, Shirvell has been blogging against the openly gay student body president at Michigan University. He's called him a Nazi, a bigot, and the servant of Satan. Shirvell claims he's not against the young man because he's gay, but because of his "radical homosexual agenda" to petition for gender neutral housing at the university. What a great idea, especially considering what happened to Tyler Clementi. My first year of college, I had a lot of friends who had to change roommates because of issues surrounding their sexuality. Even if they weren't open, they knew that their roommates would be difficult if they found out.

I know this post is a little redundant because it's been talked about so much in the blogosphere, but I just felt like I had to comment on it because it upsets me so much. So-called "Christians" attacking gay people and feeling like they have a moral imperative to do it. It's so much god obscuring perception that I just can't stand it.