Thoughts on Religion

Okay, so I read a lot of blogs. I mean, a LOT of them. One of the ones I frequent, Atheist in a Minivan, talks about how she raises her four wonderful (from what I've read) children in a secular household. Recently, she's been targeted by these people who use their blog to talk about how Possummomma is raising her children wrong. It's all very disturbing, if you take the time to read it.

Anyway, this has me thinking about religion, raising my daughter, and how we deal with it all as a family. As Unitarian-Universalists, we don't tell A what she should or should not believe. Most answers to her questions about religion start with, "Well, some people believe...". As an agnostic pagan (that's about as accurate a label as I can come up with), the UU principles really strike a chord with me. I love that our church values a responsible search for truth and meaning, and has absolutely no dogma requirements. I love that it is a place I can go for 'soul food', if you will, as well as making me think about things in ways that challenge me. It makes me feel good when A goes to 'religious education' while we're in the service, and comes upstairs after with brand new knowledge about world religions and cultures. However, on the other hand, I encourage her to read, learn, and critically think for herself. I've always taught her to not accept everything at face value, and if something doesn't seem right, to find out the truth for herself.

It also has me thinking about how NoPossumZone's family is similar to mine while I was growing up. My mother was a born-again, non-denominational Christian in the Boston Church of Christ, and I was raised in that 'church'. I think that kind of upbringing is detrimental to a child's well-being. As a mother, I have found that fear is NOT an effective disciplinary tool. But these types of 'churches' teach hellfire and damnation if you're not 'righteous' - Whatever the hell that means. In my opinion, threatening your child with spending enternity in hell is emotional abuse. But, again, that's just my opinion.

So, while I'm not exactly raising my daughter without any religion, I'd like to think that I'm still giving her the tools to decide what she wants to believe, and even IF she wants to believe at all. I'm not an atheist, but I can see why someone would be. I've been very clear with A that no matter what she believes/doesn't believe, I'll support her - So far, so good. :)

I think I'm going to consider answering those same questions just for fun.

Larry King is Awesome

This is awesome: Larry King Speaks Up For Lawrence "Larry" King
It made me cry a little. That little boy did nothing to deserve being executed, and I'm glad more people are speaking out for him. There are links in that article to Ellen's statements, and her girlfriend Portia de Rossi's PSA on GLBT violence. It's about time somebody started making some noise about this issue.
Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin composed a great post (well, they all are) about the "Golden Rule Day" that Warren Throckmorton has called for in opposition to GLSEN's "Day of Silence". He makes a great point about the tangible silence there has been from the right in regard to Larry King's death (among others). If they are such 'concerned Christians', then why didn't they (at the very least) mention how tragic it was? No, instead they would rather talk about our 'deviant sexual practices' and our 'dangerous lifestyle'. Ugh. They make me sick.
I'll tell you, even as a pagan, I swear I'm more christian than most self-proclaimed 'Christians'. Not to mention, that I probably know more about the Bible than they do. Heh.

Fibromyalgia sucks.

Well, it does! I rarely have enough 'spoons', I hurt everywhere, all the time, and I feel absolutely, completely, useless. I take dance classes twice a week. Tap & jazz on Tuesdays, and ballet on Saturdays. I do this because all my doctors have told me that if I don't move around, I'll stop being able to. So, I'm sitting here agonizing over not going tomorrow. I really don't feel well, and it seems like I've gone non-stop for close to three months. Living 42 miles away from work, church, and dance is really taking a serious toll on my health. I don't know what to do about it, though. I don't want to have to go through the experience of finding another church, that I know for sure, and the dance studio has been a part of my life (in one way or another) since I was three years old. Work is a similar issue - I love my job, and it pays me well. I could find another job closer to home, but what if I hate it? What if they don't understand when I have to stay home because Aislann is sick? What if I can't take enough time off to take care of my health? At least here, I work a 35-hour week, I get paid well, and I get 20 days off per year, not counting the 14 holidays we get - that's more than a month off!
So, I'm exhausted, and I'm feeling guilty about not going to a dance class that I pay to go to. Mostly because I'm always worried about what everyone else thinks. I know they don't get my illness, even though I've tried to explain it to them more than once. My ballet teacher came up behind me last week and drummed her fists on my back to get my attention... Not that she meant to hurt me, but you would think that after my explaining that everything hurts all the time that maybe she would think twice before doing something like that to me? So, I know that if I stay home tomorrow, I'm going to get all kinds of questions on Tuesday, and when I say, "I really didn't feel well", someone will inevitably ask, "did you have some kind of bug?". And when I again explain that, "no, I have fibromyalgia", I will get questions of, "what's that?".
Ugh.

A Bit of A Rant

Okay, so here's something that pisses me off.
There's this guy, John Howard, who believes that this country should have an "egg and sperm" law - Basically, he thinks there should be a law stating that only the sperm of a human male and the egg of a human female should be allowed to be combined to create offspring. Not a big deal, right? I mean, that's how humans procreate, so what's the problem? Well, the problem is that he believes that when you get married, and ONLY when you are joined in marriage, that you should receive so-called "conception rights". He goes further to say that you shouldn't be able to be joined in a marriage without conception rights, and therefore gay people shouldn't be able to get married. WTF??? So, basically, because I cannot conceive children with my spouse-to-be, we should not be allowed to get married.
Obviously, I have more than one issue with this logic. First of all, people (including myself) conceive children all the time without being married. People get married all the time with no plans whatsoever to conceive. Old people, infertile people, and child-free people get married without any intentions of having children. Conversely, people have children all the time without being married (again, like myself). So, why bother tying "conception rights" to marriage rights? As far as I'm concerned, this is one step closer to forcing people to become part of some kind of "registry" before they can conceive children. It's ridiculous.
He has essentially said that since "marriage rights=conception rights", if gay marriage is legal, then gay people would have conception rights (um, don't we already?) - Which would lead to 'dangerous' same-sex procreation, i.e. cloning. Utterly ludicrous. If gay people want to have babies, they just do it using the more conventional methods (at-home insemination, IVF, sperm donation, etc.). I don't think we need to be worried about gay/lesbian couples using unsafe practices to conceive children. I mean, who in their right mind would use a method of conceiving that could prove unsafe or even deadly for the unborn child? No one, that's who. People who have to jump through hoops to have children wouldn't do something so risky.
Anyway, so that's my "what pissed me off today" rant.

First Post! :D

Huh. Other than LiveJournal, I've never actually had a blog. Weird. Okay, so I guess this is going to be a space for me to vent, bitch and whine - But also to maybe discuss things that are important to me. Mostly, the things I find important to talk about piss me off, so there will be a lot of venting and/or bitching. I love to get involved in heated debate, so feel free to comment with an opposing argument. I really have fun with that. :) Most of the stuff I will post about will probably be related to queer issues, whether it be political or personal, as my queerness is something I'm proud of and I don't like it when others try to make me invisible, or take away my rights. Being queer is a very important part of who I am, but I'm also a Unitarian-Universalist Pagan, as well as a wife to a wonderful Butch, and mother to one amazing 10 year old girl.