But homosexuality is ruining your marriage, right!?

What's ruining the "family values" of the holier-than-thou, bible thumping, religious zealots today? Certainly the fact that (based on 2005 statistics) 43% of all marriages fail within the first 15 years isn't a cause. Never mind the fact that, after 75% of those people remarry, over 65% of second, third, and fourth, etc. marriages end in divorce. Certainly though, these numbers simply MUST be the fault of two men, or women, wanting nothing more than the right to enter a lifelong commitment to each other and share the same rights that heterosexual couples enjoy.

One statistic that REALLY jumped out to me was a Census Bureau report done in 2001 which showed a mere one out of every five adults has never been divorced. Meaning, only about 20 percent of American adults have never been through a divorce. Wow. Some values huh? Britney Spears knows family values too!

Now, I know this entry is a bit out of the blue, but a few articles I came across today "inspired" (if you wish to call it that) me to write on this tonight. First, was a CBS News report out today that showed per 1,000 teenage girls age 15-19, about 40.4 of them give birth each year! Clearly, we, as a society need to spend a little more time preventing "kids having kids", than we do worrying about the sexuality of other grown adults.

Another article that struck me even more, was an AP report which appeared on CBS' website yesterday, regarding Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's desire to give bigotry a vote! In other words, Romney wants to allow the voters of Mass. to decide whether or not to allow legal gay marriage to continue in the state. Seems innocent enough, right?

"One of the tenets of the Constitution is that you do not put the rights of a minority up for a popularity contest," said Mark Solomon, campaign director of Mass Equality, a pro-gay marriage group. "It is one of the very principles this country was founded upon."

In other words, all of these so called "marriage amendments," that Republicans have put up to a public vote in recent years (most recently this year when Virginia, Colorado, South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, South Dakota, Arizona and Wisconsin voted on the issue) in an effort (straight from the play book of Karl Rove) to create a "wedge issue," energize their base, and swing some independent votes their way, are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!!

Here's another interesting stat: Massachusetts is the only state to fully legalize gay marriage, it also has the lowest divorce rate of any state!! Vermont and Connecticut have legalized civil unions (my personal opinion on civil unions is that they are likable to "separate but equal laws," or segregation, however, they are a STEP in the right direction).

Wal Mart, of all things, also came under fire from radical religious groups today. Seems Wal Mart paid to become a member of the "National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce," as well as "Out and Equal," an organization promoting gay-rights advances in the workplace. Apparently, this warrants a boycott from the American Family Association, and forces Operation Save America to plan prayer/preaching rallies outside of Wal Mart stores across the country. Rev. Flip Benham of Operation Save America had this to say about Wal Mart,

"They're all being extorted by the radical homosexual agenda."

Oh? I think Flip needs a vocabulary lesson:

ex.tor.tion (noun) - the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one's office or authority.

I would hardly call Wal Marts voluntary donation to, and joining of two diversity groups, "extortion."

Alas though, Wal Mart caved, and released a letter which contained the following:

Wal-Mart will not make corporate contributions to support or oppose highly controversial issues unless they directly relate to our ability to serve our customers.

The zealots were pleased. Apparently, Wal Mart is only allowed to participate in the free market when they're doing things like discriminating, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, driving up the U.S. trade deficit to China, etc. They are not however, permitted to participate in our free market when donating to organizations which promote diversity.

I'm not trying to launch an attack on religion, or some online flame war, but I think Americans need to seriously get a grip! The level of hypocrisy in our society is out of control. Religion should not be used as a means to suppress other people, as it has been for centuries. Meaning, please stop using bible quotes as reason to discriminate! Instead, think about THIS VERSE which people opposed to equality all too often conveniently forget to mention:

"Judge not lest you be judged." - Matthew 7:1