Sweet, Sweet Progress!

Safe_Bet

No she's not back I'm Amy
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Posts
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I just watched the most amazing exchange. It’s a nice warm sunny day here in So. Cali. I’ve got all the windows open because it is beautiful outside. The birds are chirping, the suns shining and the couple that live across the street just finished having a LOUD argument in their from lawn.

The man and lady that live across the street are a couple of retired people and they are members of an evangelical Christian congregation (the kind that walks the neighborhood on weekends with bibles in their hands). We have not exactly had “warm” relations with these folks. When we first bought our house the came to visit and told us that they didn’t approve of lesbians and wished we would either “find salvation or move”.

Helen, the neighbor lady, obviously had just finished putting a Vote Yes on Prop 8 sign in her front yard. Chuck, her husband, became aware of this and apparently took umbrage. The first I knew of this was when I hear him tell his wife “pull that darned thing out before Sue or Amy see it!.”

Helen’s response was “but Minister XXXXXXX told us we had to have it there!”

Now that they had caught my attention, I watched out the window as Chuck summarily pulled up the sign and tore it in half, loudly stating “I don’t give a good wiff what Minister XXXXXXX said. Prop 8 is wrong and you know it!”

[Quoted from Wikipedia: Proposition 8 is an initiative measure on the 2008 California General Election ballot titled Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.[1][2] If passed, the proposition would change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California[3]. A new section would be added stating "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."]

At this point Joyce, one of my next-door neighbors “strode” across the street and told her “Helen, if you put that sign up and hurt Sue’s feelings I’ll never talk to you again!” Now Joyce was another one who, when we moved in, made it REAL clear that she didn’t approve of our lifestyle either.

Helen looked quite embarrassed and said “I know it’s wrong, but Minister XXXXXXX said that he was going to check to see that everyone had a sign and that if we didn’t we would be identified and called to account during Sunday services.”

Chuck just stared at her and flatly said “Then I think it’s time we found a new church that isn’t run by an ignorant bigot! I’m not going to attend a church that supports taking away the happiness that I see between those two women and their daughters.”

Helen responded by saying “Well, I think you are probably right. You know that I like both of them and Lizzy and Tina [our six year old daughters] are the sweetest, best behaved children in the world. I wish those two would give parenting lessons to XXX and XXXXXX [their son and daughter-in-law!]” Everybody then went back inside their respective houses.


I’m sitting here crying because I know that a few years ago Chuck would have gone to get a hammer and Joyce would have held the stake for her. Progress, oh sweet progress!


P.S. Vote NO on California Prop 8
 
The greatest enemy of bigotry is knowledge.

Here's hoping we see a reverse Bradley Effect... that people get in the booth, and in the privacy their own conscience outshouts their pastor.

Any decent study of the personality of Jesus as expressed in the Gospels clearly shows his utter disgust with discrimination, from the tax collectors to the prostitutes to the Samaritans.

http://images.cafepress.com/product/315207320v2_240x240_Front.jpg
 
Wonderful news!

p.s. How many neighborhoods do you think you can live in between now and Election Day?

My hopes and prayers are with you.
 
That's a touching story. Well done. And the woman does need to get away from that pastor.

This may seem unrelated, but it's not. I've always thought that Ellen Degeneres could have done far more for this type of progress if she'd have come out on her sitcom and then simply continued to be the modern Lucille Ball instead of the show getting all preachy and artsy fartsy.

Wanna dance?
 
The vast majority of people who are biased against same-sex unions are not aware that they know any homosexual or lesbian people. If they discovered how many ordinary, decent human beings were sexually oriented towards their own sex, they would be forced to see how ignorant they had spent their whole lives. Our hope lies in the Obama phenomenem of enthusiastic young voters, even though Obama himself is, like so many African-American Christian, very socially conservative.




NO ON 8
 
Wonderful news!

p.s. How many neighborhoods do you think you can live in between now and Election Day?
LOL! Here here! Cheers to you, S_B! Evidently you're the best secret weapon against Prop. 8 that we could ever wish for! I hope that pastor finds his church woefully empty next Sunday (oh, and can someone please report him to the IRS? He seems to have violated his tax free status).

NO NO NO on 8!
 
LOL! Here here! Cheers to you, S_B! Evidently you're the best secret weapon against Prop. 8 that we could ever wish for! I hope that pastor finds his church woefully empty next Sunday (oh, and can someone please report him to the IRS? He seems to have violated his tax free status).

NO NO NO on 8!

The church they attend is already being sued & reported on by GLAD and NCLR. I think the ACLU is doing something too.

BTW, is it permissible to say the church's name in the forum?
 
that made me smile huge reading that and a little teary eyed at the same time
 
The church they attend is already being sued & reported on by GLAD and NCLR. I think the ACLU is doing something too.

BTW, is it permissible to say the church's name in the forum?

At least as permissible as it is under the Bible for them to preach that they have a more direct line to the knowledge of God's will than any other non-apostle.
 
One by one, one neighborhood at a time, we can change things. Thank you and thank your neighbors for doing their part.

A :kiss: from the good little witch.
 
That is truly a heartwarming story. :rose:

Societal change, as always, begins at the grass roots level; one person at a time.

It matters not whom you love, but rather that you have someone who loves you and you love in return.

Connecticut has OK'd same-sex marriages. :D

One step at a time. ;)
 
The church they attend is already being sued & reported on by GLAD and NCLR. I think the ACLU is doing something too.

BTW, is it permissible to say the church's name in the forum?

PM me with the name angel. It's not like I give a shit.
 
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