I'm so very tired: Bigotry and Stupidity

You know I was watching "Betty and Coretta" on Lifetime last night and I was moved to tears and heavy sadness.  I am to the point where I have reached the end of my rope.  Let me explain...

It seems here lately that I am having to defend my G-d given right to be an openly gay HIV+ man, and to live my life as one.  That the "Christian-right", being whatever domination they are have the right to judge me based on what I happen to with either my dick or my ass and where and how either of those items may or may not be used.  If G-d has all that free time to be that concerned with that aspect of my life, I have one thing to say--- Get a life, and preferably not mine.

According to the Talmud there are 613 mitzvot ("commandments") in the Torah/Old Testament.There are 248 positive mitzvot and 365 negative mitzvot given supplemented by seven mitzvot legislated by the rabbis/religious leaders of antiquity.

Items that are in the Bible:

1.   A glutton should be put to death--OK, all you morbidly obese people, go slit your throats because the Bible tells you too.
2. A woman's place is in the home under the husband authority at all times no questions asked or required-- so no more working women,no more equal rights for women, no more voting rights for women and certainly no equal pay for women.  Let alone having the wife own, inherit, or possess anything of any value.
3. A disobedient child should be stoned--OK, all you parents with G-d awful brats, you know who you are-- go stone your child to death right now.
4. All adulterers should be put to death-- OK, anyone who has ever cheated, which BTW includes a former-President, congressmen, senators, mayors, school teachers and religious leaders-- your next to be stoned to death.
5. Probably most importantly.. and this one is a shocker... The Emancipation Proclamation needs to be done away with because the Bible SUPPORTS slavery!
6. Some have gone so far as to say that the ENTIRE African race was born out of the curse of Ham! And have used the Bible to support their thinking.

Yet, somehow, the most pious of Christians would be simply be appalled  by these notions, and "Oh by the way darling, Christ himself did away with all the laws of the Old Testament with the whole idea of "Love thy neighbor as thyself", the Old Testament's is after all out of vogue."

Really--wow.  Love thy neighbor as thyself...... when you say LGBT folks are "not created in G-d's image, that LGBT Folks are in a continual state of sin for being LGBT, you ARE in fact saying that we are less than what G-d created--how self righteous of you to point that out. 

That employers have the right to fire us, landlords have the right to evict us, that the government has the right to deny us the right to marry, to adopt and to even love and in some countries has the right to put us to death... because you feel that this ONE particular Old Testament commandment is more relevant that than other 612 commandments of the Bible.

This goes into supporting organizations, or business that support anti-gay causes as well.  You give them your dollar, your dollar supports their hate, their rhetoric, and their bigotry plain and simple--no questions asked.

You want to stone me to death then darlin' keep in mind the words of Christ himself "Let him without ANY sin cast the first stone" oh and by the way darlin' here's your ROCK!

I have just had it and I don't care what the excuses are, if we as American were doing what we are doing to LGBTQ folks to any other race, anywhere on the planet someone would be screaming their bloody head off about it.  And I guess I am!

There are so many issues that we as a human race do not want to take a stand on---  you have someone like Gabby Gifford speaking out on gun violence, gun legislation and yet our elected officials have yet to take a stand and say that we as society do not need a gun that can shoot 300 hundred rounds in less than a minute.  Really, you need a gun of this power to go hunting Bambi, protect your home and your life--if this is the case then guess what I want to leave America.

You have someone like Harry Belafonte speak at the NAACP Awards about gun violence and yet did it fall on deaf ears.  It is not just the role of the black church to take stand on this issue but the church as a universal whole needs to say NO MORE!

You have masses of people who dying of AIDS because the costs or availability, or any other excuse are denied access to those drugs when the focus should be doing what we can to provide those desperately needed drugs to those who need them.

You have people tortured and killed in countries for whatever reason--sexuality, race or other topics simply because they are who they are,  When was the last time we spoke out about the gay man killed in Afghanistan or the genocide that is happening in Darfur--when we said "NEVER AGAIN" in the 1940's?

Are we that per-occupied with all of our technology, all of our commitments, all of the unnecessary things in life to take a stand for the things that really matter? Is it so important Johnny or Suzie belong to five after school activities, is it life changing if we don't talk on our cell phone constantly, that we forget the dead child killed in the streets yesterday only to talk about he dead child in the street killed today.

When have we done something for the poor, the underprivileged, the illiterate and the struggling in this country alone, not to mention the entire planet.  It has to start somewhere.  Mother Teresa started out simply--not being who she ended up being---Martin Luther King Jr.started as a simple country minister, Ghandi began earnestly and determined to change fate.

You want to be small minded--- do it on your clock, you want to be naive--- do it on your clock, you want to bury your head in the sand--- do it on your own clock.  I for one can't take it anymore.

I feel in the depths of my heart this is the real reason G-d in his divine wisdom left me alive nearly 22 years after being diagnosed with AIDS--- that I am to be the voice of the forgotten, the down-trodden, the struggling, the repressed, the hated and ridiculed and like Coretta Scott King I will strive to eradicate these issues till my dying breath.

In closing, I want to leave you with the words of Coretta Scott King:

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won you earn it and win it in every generation. 

 The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members, ... a heart of grace and a soul generated by love. 

 I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Now, my challenge is to bring about change!