Power and Oppression

I'm really tired of people using religion to justify their own personal issues and discomforts.  (This is not surprising, of course, as it's been done for as long as religion has been around, and yet it still bothers me. ) Do we really think we're so different from the Roman Catholic Church of long ago? I see too many similarities, in the wake of California's Proposition 8 passing... mostly because of the mobilization of churches.  

Wouldn't it be nice if churches used their power of mobilization/brainwashing/whatever you want to call it to do something positive... like help homeless people or actually love neighbors or something Jesus talked about (he didn't talk about homosexuals, people!)  This is fucking ridiculous.  

I'm really pissed at the black churches, too. Although there aren't as many of them out in California as here, they also played a big role in this.  Do they not get that 60 years ago the government was doing the same thing to take away the rights of interracial couples?  What's more, people were using the Bible to justify this... saying it was "unnatural" and "not God's way" (sound familiar?).  Good to know they are now using the same weapons used against them against others... it is a vicious cycle of everybody oppressing those below them. It's very depressing.  

It's like the southerners.  I saw  really interesting documentary that reminded me of this cultural dynamic.  The South was essentially the marginalized group in America, with the North weaving its own narrative about Plymoth Rock and Boston being the center of the country.  Power began to shift up there and the South was mostly poor.  So in reaction they began to develop their own uppity society (my words)-- the plantation culture-- which was built off of upper class british customs and was mostly an act. The Planatation, as exhibited in Gone with the Wind didn't really exist like that. It was a lot of Pomp, I guess. 

So then you have the irony of the civil war-- southerners were fighting for their rights and the balance of power in the legislative branches, but meanwhile they were oppressing the rights of slaves. The oppressed, ironically, turn to more oppression.  And those fighting for this right were not really slave-owners, but poor white southerners for the most part, who were caught up in the cultural story but in reality were seeing little of that wealth. Many of them lived no better than the slaves, except that they had the right to marry and own property... which they couldn't afford. They were themselves oppressed by the upper class minority.  Yet they were fighting to keep that oppression in place. It's sad.

Now I'm on a real tangent... I guess I'm just bemoaning humanity today, how far we need to come.  And so there is religion-- the thing invented or sent down or whatever your belief--to help people become better, more moral, more connected to God or Nature or Love.  And what do we do-- we use it as a weapon for our own shortcomings.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised... this is the same species that would crucify the son of God. I don't believe it literally, of course, but it's a powerful story about the cruelty of humans and power and the danger of them mixing. 

Of course, Jesus' story is supposed to have a happy ending.  But I won't go into my thoughts on that right now, as I've already written enough tangents for one day.  

The point is: I'm sad about Prop 8.  And yes I am happy about Obama, but this happiness is tinged with trepidation.  And he, like most politicians currently, also does not support equal rights in the way I would like.  In some ways I'm glad he "panders" to get elected... because Lord knows third party candidates sadly have no chance. But in other ways it's disappointing.  I am not blindly hopeful.  I am hopeful and scared at once.

And in hope, an addendum from the Episcopal Church:

A brochure on the door of the Episcopal Chaplain's office at Stanford University reads, "What did Jesus say about homosexuality?" When the brochure is opened the inside is completely blank. Episcopal Chaplain Penelope Duckworth explains, "For we, as Christians, pay particular attention to the words of our savior. Jesus said nothing regarding homosexuality, and in his ministry spoke more about the sins of the spirit than the sins of the body...Our reading of the Bible in its entirety is one of a loving, forgiving and nurturing God who wants us to help create a world that accepts and empowers us all." (Letter to the Editor, by Rev. Penelope Duckworth, Elizabeth Cook and Cynthia Stotts Howard, the Stanford Daily March 1990).