Today I joined a meeting that began with people from both ends of the political spectrum to begin coming up with strategy and attempting to enlist gay rights groups in an effort to bring marriage equality to the state I currently reside in. The tension was palpable; I could almost say there were some who exuded animosity at certain times. During our discussions, some could not help but bring up the fact that they’ve been working on equality for a long time. I couldn’t help but wonder whether that was their way of saying they knew better than the conservatives leading the charge what to do or if it was their ego coming out to say, “we want credit” – either way, I felt a sense that we had taken a big step forward in achieving something that no primarily conservative state has been able to accomplish yet.

A good friend and the chair of Arizona Log Cabin Republicans Caucus, Erin Simpson, had let me in on it and asked me to keep it on the down-low since nobody was sure if it would make it off the ground. I was excited to meet some of the other people behind the initiative and get the chance to hear everyone’s concerns, and I was particularly excited to finally be able to say publicly that we could actually win this.

I have said many times before that I would never support any marriage equality bill that did not also include specific provisions to reinforce religious freedom. Any law I got behind would have to explicitly protect the right of any church or religious organization to refuse to assert their freedom of religious expression and refuse to marry a couple, whether gay or straight. This initiative does exactly that. It is exactly two sentences, changing the language of the bill that was voted into law in 2008 that declared marriage as being between one man and one woman. It changes the language from defining marriage as between “a man and a woman” to being between “two persons”. Also added is the following phrase:

“A religious organization, religious association, or religious society shall not be required to solemnize or officiate any particular marriage or religious rite of marriage in violation of its Constitutional right to free exercise of religion.”

No church will ever be forced to marry a gay couple if they choose not to. The doomsday predictions that churches will be sued for such refusals are shut down before they even begin. Gay and lesbian couples get their right to marry and Evangelicals are protected – which was exactly what I was personally after. And – bonus! – it’s been started by right-leaning leaders in the Arizona political scene. Erin is also a lesbian, a successful retired lawyer, and a wonderful woman with a lot of experience and wisdom to add to the debate on equality. The co-chair, Warren Meyer, is a successful businessman and libertarian. Others who are on board now once didn’t believe in marriage equality. That they are so honest is inspiring to me. It gives me hope that we can live in peace.

Equality is coming. It’s inevitable. I would simply prefer to have a say in all the other issues that come with it, and I am happy that things are changing.

Gag me.

I don’t need to go through all of the reasons why he is not our friend again. You can read what I had to say about that here. What I am going to do is pull back the blinds on an issue that irks me – one you’d think gays and lesbians in the US would be more conscientious about.

Gay rights in the Middle East.

President Obama makes grand speeches like the one he made just a few days ago, regaling us all with tales of his “partnership” with the gay community and his belief that we should be equal, but he openly ignores the plight of gays and lesbians in the Middle East. In Iran, gay men are hung publicly. In Egypt, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar, and especially Saudi Arabia, gay men are beaten, starved, tortured, stoned and beheaded. What’s more, the same things are done by the supposedly peace-loving Palestinians – uneasy neighbors to Israel.

What should be heartwarming is the fact that Israel welcomes gay people. There is no legal discrimination (with the exception of a ban on gay adoptions, which can easily be circumvented there, as opposed to here). Gay pride parades can happen in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem without fear of bombings or shootings because they are protected by police and IDF. Gay tourism in Tel Aviv has grown, and this year’s pride festival drew more attendees from Israel and Europe than most US pride festivals. Tel Aviv is listed as one of the world’s most gay-friendly cities – I dare say because there are very few, if any, Palestinians there.

Go ahead, call me a hatemonger. I don’t hate them – I just don’t trust them.

I am damn proud to be an American, but I am mortified that my President will proclaim an entire month gay pride month while he throws billions of dollars in cash and weapons at nations that would see my people rounded up and slaughtered if they could get away with it (both gays and Jews). Celebrities in my country of birth claim to support my rights as a lesbian to live freely and openly while also attacking the only nation in the Middle East that allows gay people to live in the open and cares when one of us is attacked or murdered. I am disgusted that so many people of note in America are so willing to be so hypocritical and excuse themselves as somehow more “moral” than I am.

June is also cat adoption month. It has gone ignored by Obama.

You know what else it is? This is very personal for me – PTSD awareness month. This is where I come out of the closet. I have PTSD.

The details are my business, but until I was diagnosed in 2009 I struggled with depression, memories that I couldn’t get rid of, flashbacks, panic attacks – the whole nine yards. I knew something was off but I couldn’t tell what until I met a therapist who put it all together. Right now, that therapist is the only reason I’m still in the Phoenix area. I have made incredible strides toward having something resembling a normal life only to have liberals in the past few months saying publicly that I should have certain rights – particularly my Second Amendment rights – taken away because I’m somehow dangerous. June is the month set aside to bring attention to those with PTSD, and Obama all but thumbed his nose at it when he decided to declare it gay pride month.

I am insulted. I feel like I’m being slapped in the face by a government that refuses to acknowledge my right to disagree. I am being lied to by a man who claims to care about my rights as a lesbian, yet cares nothing for the gay and lesbian victims all over the Middle East who fear death every day. I refuse to accept his proclamation. As soon as Obama stops trying to pander to groups that he refuses to help protect overseas, I’ll believe he cares about my rights.

A week ago, the unthinkable happened. Now you’re burying your brother.

You aren’t used to standing at attention for long periods. It’s been a long time since you did that. Three minutes doesn’t sound like much until you have to hold a sharp salute for that long. You didn’t even want to think about it because you didn’t want to face reality.

You’re called to attention. You snap to. Heels together. Feet planted at a 45-degree angle. Knees slightly bent. Shoulders back. Chest out. Hands closed, thumbs lined up with the seams of your trousers. You’ve been trained by the military, so you can assume that position without thinking.

“Pre-sent…ARMS!”

Four-count up; open your right hand as you bring it to your eyebrow. Keep your hand perfectly bladed. Straight line from your elbow to the tips of your fingers. Upper arm at a 90-degree angle to your body. Don’t waver, no matter how tired your arm may be. If, God forbid, a tear makes its way down your face, it must go unattended. Your muscles are screaming. Do not break your salute.

“Order…ARMS!”

Four-count. Drop your hand slowly, closing it again when it returns to your side. Hike to your rig, already parked in position for the procession. When you get in, you talk and joke a little bit to try and take your mind off of the gravity of what you’re doing; you do it every day after rough calls so it’s second nature by now. This isn’t the movies – you sit and wait 45 minutes for the procession to begin. After 20 minutes you thank God that the techs fixed your air conditioning yesterday.

The procession winds its way through the city. The entire route is lined with people. It seems as if the city has emptied to pay their respects. You didn’t know that so many still cared. This isn’t a parade, they told you, but you can’t help it. There are kids in the crowd. You wave back. At every intersection closed to make way there is a fire unit, its members lined up beside their rigs. Police squads, even the ones normally off duty during daylight hours, are crisply lined up along the route, standing and saluting your brother.

At the end of his final tour, you line up with your brothers and sisters for a long time, patiently waiting for everyone in the procession to arrive. His flag-draped casket is lowered from the engine. The captain calls everyone to attention.

“Pre-sent…ARMS!”

Four-count up. Hold it. God, it’s hot. My buddy would be laughing and calling me an pansy right now if he were with me.

“Order…ARMS!”

Four-count down.

The bell tolls 333 – three rings of the bell three times.

“Ceremony…REST!”

You relax. The honor guard folds the flag. You see his young wife stunned to the point of being nearly expressionless. You think about how brutally unfair it is to her. You think about what an amazing father he would have made. You silently berate God as the flag is presented. Why him? Why now? He’s too young!

Then you realize: there is never an acceptable time. Ten years? Twenty years? It would still hurt in ways that you don’t even want to imagine. Why him? Because he was a good man willing to put himself in harm’s way to try to make the world a better place.

It’s going to hurt. There is no way to stop that, but you know that your hurt is nothing compared to his wife, parents, and family. There is no way to stop the pain. You know that death is a part of life, but you can’t stop it from hurting – and you know you shouldn’t try.

A lone bagpiper begins the strains of “Amazing Grace.” After one verse, the full pipes and drums join in. You tell yourself to hold it together. When the full corps falls silent the lone piper, still playing, walks away, the fading cry of a familiar hymn echoing through the silence.

You hear the last call. You pretend you aren’t affected. The dispatcher – whom you know personally – calls him by name three times, then calls his final resting place by its address, and you wonder how he does it without losing his vocal cadence. The dispatcher calls the address of the cemetery and announces that your brother’s resting place is exactly where you are standing.

“Atten-TION!”

Snap to.

“Pre-sent….ARMS!”

Four-count up. The bugler plays Taps. This is where you always lose it – at every military and police memorial you have attended in uniform, tears always begin spilling down your face at this part. Today is no exception. Don’t move. Hold your salute, no matter what.

“Order….ARMS!”

Four-count down.

“Dis-MISSED!”

As you walk back to the rig to return to the station, you suddenly feel a pang of desperation. You’re leaving him here. The finality hits you in a way it hadn’t before. You remember when you tripped over your own two feet one night and bit gravel, then heard his voice behind you chuckling just before he ran to your side and playfully did a mock patient assessment, saying, “don’t worry, I’m here to help!” Then he pulled you to your feet and clapped you on the shoulder. He didn’t have to ask if you were okay, because he knew from experience that even if you were hurt, you wouldn’t have admitted it.

With that happy memory, you walk to the rig without looking back. In 48 hours you’ll be back, and you’ll wish he was there. You still have all your other brothers and sisters with you. You’ll carry each other. You’ll never forget his promise, no matter what the cost, to pay the price. You silently make the same promise.

Here at gayconservative we are not joining the speculation and we ask that our readers and friends respect that. Nothing is set in stone; there are a lot of rumors swirling about, but we do not really know yet what happened. When something concrete is released, we will comment on it.

Until then we offer prayers, support and love to the families of the three who have died and the 140+ who have been injured. Let our focus remain on them for now.

I don’t necessarily agree with Pastor Warren on a number of things, but I do have respect for him. He doesn’t pull a huge salary from his church. He doesn’t live an opulent lifestyle, at least not that I know of. My heart broke when I heard that his son had taken his own life after struggling with severe depression since childhood.

What has come out of some members of the gay community, however, is beyond the pale.

Twitchy and The Blaze both reported social media movements directing breathtaking hatred at Pastor Warren and his family after Matthew’s death. They suggested that Matthew was gay and killed himself because his father was a supposed hatemonger. They brought up his support for Prop 8 and literally said that Pastor Warren “hanged his own son”. They said that “with all the gay kids dead, this was a small price to pay.”

Shut up. For once in your over-privileged, self-indulgent lives, shut the hell up. I’ve lost four of my friends to suicide. As an EMT, I’ve run countless suicide calls and I always leave with the feeling that I have done absolutely nothing to help the family. It is nearly impossible for me these days to run those calls without breaking down myself. It has gotten to the point that child drownings are less difficult for me, and that’s a significant statement for me to make. I know how dark those days are after you find someone you loved in that position.

At the same time, I also know suicidal depression. My entire life, I’ve been hated and made fun of. I’ve always been the butt of someone’s joke. I believe it is only by the grace of G-d that I am a stronger person now, because I have been down that black hole where it felt as though there was no escape. Maybe G-d has used those calls to open my eyes to the reality that suicide leaves behind; if so, I am thankful for that, even though I’m not sure my presence was much help to those left to pick up the pieces. Each and every one of you aiming your vitriol at Pastor Warren, accusing him of “killing his gay son”, have directed the same vile stupidity at me at one time or another and you do not know or care how much that hurts. Who the hell are you to preach about caring for the hurting? You can’t even do it yourselves!

I am beyond appalled. I am furious. Pastor Warren is a much more gracious and forgiving soul than I am in praying for these people. I cannot understand celebrating someone’s death, not for any reason. I have never in my life felt happiness upon hearing that a human being has died, no matter how much I may have disliked them. Yet as angry as I am with the gay community right now for their intense hatred, intolerance, and hypocrisy, I still cannot wish this kind of pain upon them.

What astounds me, though, is Dan Savage. Usually the first to make an inappropriate comment or attack a conservative, when asked for his opinion he said, “My only comment is this: As a parent, my heart aches for Rick Warren and his wife. They have my sympathy.”

Thank you, Dan, for not hating Rick Warren as so many others have.

By the time war broke out, life for Germans in Germany had become relatively nice – at least in comparison to what it had been like in the years following the Treaty of Versailles. The war effort required work from all who were able. All Germans were promised a home, a car, and an annual vacation. Those deemed a threat to the Aryan race, however, suffered horrors that the rest of the world only heard whispers of for many years. In 1941, the wearing of a yellow Star of David with “Jude” embroidered on it became compulsory for all Jews in German-held territories. Ghettos were being emptied, the Jews inhabiting them sent to concentration camps. Those capable of working were led through gates topped with the now-infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes You Free”) sign. They would live a miserable existence where they would have their heads shaved, their possessions stolen, an inmate number tattooed on their forearm, and starvation coupled with brutal manual labor.

The rest would be stripped and marched into what they were told would be a shower. Instead they were gassed to death. Still others would be forced to dig their own mass grave before being lined up and shot. The wholesale extermination of the Jews, along with Romani (Gypsies), homosexuals and other “undesirables”, was in full swing by 1942. An extremely anti-Jewish museum exhibit was displayed in Paris in 1941.

On the war front, Hitler had sent the Luftwaffe to bomb England in preparation for an invasion. He was intent on taking England. At the same time, Adolf Hitler had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, but he had no intention of keeping it. He hinted long before the pact was signed that he wanted to take the Soviet homeland, in part because he believed they were ruled by Jews (never mind the widespread pogroms in the Soviet Union). When Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania joined Hitler’s Tripartate Pact, he finally felt ready to mount a major assault on the frigid Soviet nation. He sent five and a half million troops, half a million heavy armored vehicles and three-quarter million horses.

Hitler had no intention of making Napoleon’s mistake – being defeated by the horrid Russian winter. He ordered his mass offensive to begin in May 1941 (it was pushed back a month when his greed for land led to Nazi invasions in Greece and Yugoslavia). While the Wehrmacht’s first strike was devastating to the Soviets, Nazi generals began fighting over which target was more important. The Nazis advanced 600 miles into Soviet territory and took over three million prisoners by November 1941. They were looking into Moscow when the infighting reached a fever pitch. German supply lines were nearly broken and winter was setting in – their troops were not prepared for the extreme cold. After the first major blizzard, on December 5, Soviet forces mounted a counterattack. German heavy equipment was useless in the sub-zero temperatures. The counterattack was devastating to the Germans.

Two days later, the Japanese bombed the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan as a result, and four days after the bombing Hitler declared war on the United States. He was still living in denial that Germany could win with her military stretched so thin; fighter planes that could have turned the tide against the Soviets had already been shot down over England. After the defeat at Moscow, fighting ground nearly to a halt. Hitler was able to re-supply his troops and send reinforcements.

While he was trying to hold up the offensive in Russia, he had given up on invading England. He had a new threat: the United States. His declaration of war was all America needed to finally join British forces in helping occupied Allied territories to beat back the Nazis.

Hitler began to get frustrated with how slow his victories were beginning to go, and after the Germans were defeated by the allies at El Alamein, Hitler took complete command over his armies. His astounding overconfidence in his own military “expertise” became the beginning of his downfall – as his decisions became more erratic and losses became more common, he started to panic. The Battle of Stalingrad in January 1943 became such a breathtaking loss that Hitler nearly lost his mind. He all but became a recluse. He still had absolute faith in his own genius, and he refused to give up despite searing losses continuing in Russia.

He began to realize the end was more than mere rumor when Allied forces invaded Sicily in July 1943. The Germans realized another crushing defeat at Kursk and went into perpetual retreat from the Eastern front. Then, intel reported a huge buildup of British and American forces in England and word that Allied forces were planning an invasion somewhere on the coast reached Hitler. Germans were still living in denial thanks to the press only reporting what Hitler’s propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, allowed them to report. They had no idea that the Nazis were genuinely afraid for the first time.

The Nazis refused to give up. While average German citizens were busy supporting the war effort through recycling and working in industrial plants to produce U-boats, jet fighters, Panzers and small arms, Nazi commanders were still confident that they would win the day. They still refused to send women to work in the plants; their place was in the home, giving birth to and raising good Aryans. Citizens in occupied countries were forced to dig defensive Earthworks (massive trenches, concrete and steel barriers to stop troop carriers and tanks). The desire to exterminate the Jews saw Nazis continuing to work them to death deliberately, the need for laborers be damned.

The first bombing runs on Germany had begun in 1940, although they weren’t as effective as they would later become. The Allies realized that bombing just a factory or a base was little more than a minor setback – they needed to take out the workers, too, and in 1942 RAF and USAAF squadrons began carpet-bombing entire German cities. Kiel was bombed in May 1943. Hamburg was bombed in July 1943; 30,000 died in the bombing raid and subsequent firestorm. Every German city that hosted anything resembling a war supply factory or warehouse was bombed regularly. The raids first inspired action and organization, but within a year they had begun to falter under the psychological strain.

On the ground, the Americans, knowing full well the legend of General George S. Patton, sent him to Northern England as a distraction. They were gambling that Hitler would find out about Patton’s location and concentrate his forces away from Normandy, and the ruse worked. On June 6, 1944, after days of bombing from the air, landing forces poured ashore at Normandy while newly-formed parachute infantry regiments dropped troops behind Nazi lines in occupied France. The sheer numbers of American troops that survived the assault and the mass amounts of heavy armored equipment left German troops in awe, wondering what possessed Hitler to declare war on a nation that could muster this kind of response.

The Allies gained a crucial foothold in France. The German war effort was nearly irreversibly damaged. The Soviets were pushing back from the East, and Allied troops had begun to press in from the South, taking oil fields in Iran. A pall was cast over the Nazis.

I’m not going to link the video here because I’m not interested in directing traffic to it. I have seen it, and it’s incredibly infantile. His roles in movies like Me, Myself and Irene were worth more than this garbage. His entire excuse for his boorish behavior? He’s against “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines”, of course.

Naturally, that makes it perfectly okay to make fun of a man who far out-classes you, Mr. Carrey.

Charlton Heston was marching for civil rights long before anyone else in Hollywood took it up as a cause. He took a hell of a lot of flak for it, too. Later, after he became one of the biggest box office draws, Heston helped push the Gun Control Act of 1968. Among the provisions of that bill were bans on felons and illegal aliens possessing or purchasing guns and the establishment of Federal Firearms Licensing, requiring all gun dealers to be licensed.

Even Heston, however, knew there had to be limits to progressivism. Sometime in the 1980′s he left the progressive bandwagon. He believed there were enough restrictions on owning guns. Civil rights had already been secured. He saw progressives making targets out of conservative white citizens who believed in their First and Second Amendment rights and he believed that the pendulum was about to swing too far. He became the president of the NRA after seeing the seemingly never-ending assault on Second Amendment rights in America.

That, however, is the only thing today’s Hollywood remembers of him. They have developed selective amnesia and forgotten that he picketed against a theater that was playing the movie El Cid – one of his best – because the theater was segregated. Allied Artists, the film company that made the movie, was mad at him for the move but he refused to back down. He marched with Dr. King and Sydney Poitier. Yet all they want to recall is that he held a rifle aloft and told the world that the government of his country would have to pry his guns from his cold, dead hands.

Some of my friends have reminded me to “consider the source” before getting angry with Jim Carrey. Unfortunately, he’s not the only source, and he’s only serving to further popularize a ridiculous notion that certain weapons with purely cosmetic features and large-capacity clips are the real cause of gun violence. That he chose to attack Mr. Heston long after his passing may show how tasteless he is but it makes him no less dangerous to our freedom to defend ourselves.

What’s more, when the outrage against his immature little snit was reported widely on Fox News, Carrey took it a step further and released an equally ludicrous “press release” attacking “Fux News” and claiming that he’d sue if he felt they were worth his time. Sorry, kiddo – you’re not suing because you know full well that you’d lose and everyone knows it. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

It’s not Fox that’s attacking you, it is us – the Americans who have watched your movies and put millions of dollars in your pockets because we thought you were a talented comedian. You have insulted us by acting as though you know better than we do. You’ve never served your country (hell, you’ve never served your community) and you have no idea what kind of evil lurks in the world. You have no clue what it takes to defend the people you love because you have never had to do it the way we have. Why would you? You have enough money to hire armed bodyguards. I wonder, Jim, do you count the number of rounds in their weapons before they’re allowed to work for you? Or do you want them to have more rounds in the event some nutjob attacks you?

At the end of the day, we all realize one simple truth: Charlton Heston had more class in his little finger than you will realize in your entire life. You are the court jester, and we do not like the entertainment preaching to us about how we should believe. This is not an attack orchestrated by Fox, it is a backlash from us being reported by Fox. That you fail to understand that only proves how childish you really are.

He suggested an “Anglo-German Alliance”, inviting Italy, Britain, France, Poland, China and Japan to sign the Anti-Comintern Pact. Only Italy and Japan signed the Pact. I think Hitler made the offer knowing full well that European nations would refuse; upon their refusal, he publicly stated his aim of Lebensraum, or “living space” for the German people. The pact strengthened ties with Japan and ended German support for China (whom Japan was trying to conquer); as a result, Hitler lost essential raw materials that China produced.

The issue didn’t faze him. On March 12, 1938, Anschluss was declared, and Austria was reunified with Germany. Hitler also wanted the Sudetenland – another “buffer zone” set up by Versailles, one that was home to a large number of ethnic Germans. A secret political plan to excuse military action against Czechoslovakia, which governed the Sudetenland, was hatched, but it was summarily canned when Hitler realized that he was still dependent upon oil imports and Britain’s superior navy could bring those imports to a grinding halt if he was too aggressive too soon.

The French and British were so averse to the idea of going to war again that they were willing to do anything to end it before it began. While Hitler’s plant in Sudetenland stirred up trouble on the ground, Hitler met with British PM Neville Chamberlain, French president Edouard Daladier, and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in Munich on September 29, 1938. The Czechs were deliberately left out of the Munich Summit. Chamberlain returned to London declaring “peace in our time,” holding the Munich Agreement aloft.

Hitler, meanwhile, was publicly disappointed that Germany didn’t have an excuse to declare war. His rearmament began faltering for lack of raw materials, particularly iron. He finally cracked and cut the military budget, but he refused to sit still for long. On March 15, 1939, Hitler invaded and conquered Prague. The Allies condemned him again, but refused to do anything tangible. The British vowed that Poland was their line in the sand and any German effort to invade would be met with military resistance.

Hitler took it as a challenge. He signed a non-aggression pact with Russia to set the stage for war and ordered the invasion of Poland (what most don’t know is that the pact also included a promise to split Poland between Germany and Russia, securing Russian military assistance). France and Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, but did not actually respond.

While all of this was going on, a plan to systematically rid Germanic Europe of the Jews was being put into place. Hitler was merely one man in a historic string of hardline anti-Semitic Europeans (to include Martin Luther), but he was the culmination of beliefs that the Jews were responsible for all of the world’s ills. Whereas political enemies and “moral” enemies (particularly homosexuals) were seen as salvageable, Jews were race enemies and – along with Gypsies and Poles – to be eradicated.

Dachau actually opened in 1933. At the height of the Third Reich, some 42,000 concentration camps were being operated, primarily in Germany, Austria and Poland. Shoah (literally “The Calamity”, known to most as The Holocaust) did not begin with a bang; rather, it began with a slogging gait, slowly introducing injustice after injustice until it became an act of pure horror. In April 1933, Jewish businesses were boycotted. Throughout that year, Jews were banned from nearly every respectable profession in Germany – law, medicine, and agriculture chief among them. Hereditary Health Courts were set up to order the sterilization of “undesirables”, mostly those who had physical or mental impairments.

In 1935, Hitler passed the “Blood Laws”. They stripped Jews of German citizenship, barred Jews from marrying non-Jews, and forbade German women from working as maids in Jewish households – in essence, they deprived all Jews of any semblance of civil rights. In footage from Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), Hitler gives a speech in which he says, “if international-finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed once more in plunging the nations into yet another world war, the consequences will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” Jewish scholars began leaving in droves around this time, with the upper- and middle-class Jews hot on their heels. Despite the globally-recognized persecution of Jews in Germany, the 1936 Olympic Games were held in Berlin.

On November 7, 1938, a Jewish teenager named Hermann Grünspan walked into the German embassy in Paris and assassinated Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath in retaliation for the persecution of some 12,000 Polish Jews in Germany (they had been forced from their homes, herded onto trains and forced back to Poland, only to be left in the snow when the Polish government refused to allow them entry). The act was used as an excuse to take more drastic action. Almost immediately, a wave of new pogroms now known as Kristallnacht began; by the end, 7,000 Jewish businesses had been vandalized, every synagogue in Germany had been either badly damaged or destroyed, and an estimated 100 Jews were dead (although the true figure is unknown). It was also used as an excuse to ban Jews from owning any kind of weapon, particularly firearms (which the Nazis required registration and permits for anyway, and now knew where to go to collect them).

Jews were forced to wear a yellow cloth badge in the form of the Star of David so that good Aryans would know whether to have civil dealings with them. Many tried desperately to leave, but with most countries enacting strict laws to halt the flow of Jewish immigrants, it became increasingly difficult. With the opening of Dachau, Jews in German-held territories who gave any excuse at all were sent to concentration camps. In 1940, they were relocated to ghettos while their homes were given to German citizens.

In April 1940, Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway. A month later he took France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The British, having realized that they should have acted long before this point when Winston Churchill had first warned them, invited Churchill to be the PM and began fighting the Nazi onslaught. Hitler badly wanted to take England and ordered London to be firebombed when the Luftwaffe failed to upstage the Royal Air Force. He asked Russia for help, but Stalin’s emissary refused. Hitler quietly ordered a plan to invade Russia for their insolence.

He didn’t know it, but he had just sealed the fate of the Third Reich. The rest of the world feared that they would never defeat him. Nobody knew where this massive conflict would go.

It’s not that I don’t believe in G-d or His Grace. I just don’t believe that the church today really puts much emphasis on it these days, even though they claim to.

A rabbi that I know and deeply respect once said something to me that I’ve never forgotten. He said, “if Yeshua (Jesus) was the messiah, He certainly never intended his followers to become what they are.” He wasn’t talking about one issue in particular, he was discussing many issues in that one statement, and he was right. Christians in America can be the most arrogant, pious, and self-serving people on the planet. They do more damage to their own cause than they will ever be willing to admit, and they claim it all in the name of love.

This isn’t solely going to be an indictment on Christians for their teachings on homosexuality (although that is definitely part of it). There’s more to it than that. I’m not willing to call them hatemongers, but they are blinded by their own self-righteousness. Keith Green wrote some amazing songs that called the church out on its hypocrisy – I grew up with his music, and I still love it. What astonishes me is that he was so popular with the very people who were behaving exactly as he described:

“Oh bless me lore, bless me lord”
You know it’s all I ever hear
No one aches, no one hurts
No one even sheds one tear…

The world is sleeping in the dark
That the church just can’t fight
’cause it’s asleep in the light …

I still remember, well after Green died in a plane crash, the music minister at my church singing that song one Sunday morning. The high points of the song garnered cheering. My church, Grace Community Church of Clear Lake (now GCC Houston with two massive campuses, one on either end of the city), had a very large, beautiful facility. It was very expensive. I remember fundraising efforts to have the backlit stained-glass window installed behind the baptismal. All of the money that has been spent on that facility could have gone to a million different things, but they spent it on the latest and greatest buildings and technology.

At the time, I would have proudly defended it. We need these things, I’d say, because we need to be able to attract people to the church to hear the gospel. I now believe I was very wrong, and so were they. Knowing what I know about what went on in the offices I don’t think any of the staff were nearly as ministry-minded as I used to believe. Even I wasn’t ministry-minded; I was religious, and I couldn’t tell the difference between being religious and having faith. They really are two vastly different things. I now understand perfectly the dichotomy of that song’s message and how nobody in the congregation understood it.

In my first year of working as an EMT, I had to learn where the county homeless shelter was and who was allowed to be there. Because the homeless could go there and get three square meals, religious groups were barred from gathering to pass out food – I have since had to ask many of them to leave. Nearly all of them have gotten aggressive with me, often accusing me of being an angry lesbian (yes, it really is that obvious) who hates God and only wants to stop their “ministry”. I’ve had groups all but assault me, trying to “lay hands” on me to pray for my salvation. I know that they don’t mean to hurt me, but at the same time I can’t let them do those things. I’ve had to call police to remove them more times than I can recall.

You see, rather than offer assistance to the county to help run the shelter and kitchens, they’d rather hand out food themselves and preach. I used to do it, too, and I know exactly why they do it – to feel better about themselves. They go out on a Sunday afternoon and make a gesture that, in the end, really doesn’t mean much. Once their good deed is done for the week, they go to church on Wednesday and brag about how they did battle with the “forces of darkness” (that would be me, of course) and talk about doing it again.

Being a good Christian is about more than a big facility, expensive production equipment, and going out to hand out food to the homeless once in a while. It’s about more than saying grace before sitting down to eat. It’s about more than a cool slogan, t-shirt, bumper sticker, or the most recent devotional version of the Bible. It should be about faith. Among Christians, divorce and financial irresponsibility are rampant. They want to hold all of society accountable but they can’t even hold themselves accountable. Jesus said that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, yet we have Christian leaders (including my former pastor from Houston) telling their congregants that G-d’s blessings will make them wealthy if they only have enough faith.

The only people that Jesus specifically condemned to hell, however, were the religious leaders. He spoke seven woes upon the Pharisees and Saducees. I think if He were here in the flesh now he’d say the same thing. He’d ask, “what do you need this huge building for? Why are there pictures of the pastor all over every piece of literature this church hands out? Why are you on TV asking for donations when you already have a huge home and an expensive car? Why are you out protesting a group of people when you could be quietly living a faithful life and setting a better example – without the piousness?”

I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s Easter. If it means something to you, I think it’s great – it’s between you and G-d. The next time you get into that debate and you feel the urge to shout me down, ask yourself why. Why is it so important that I force my faith on everyone through law? Was G-d’s promise to “heal their land” really meant for us, or was it simply directed at a wayward Israel? How does the gospel gain converts when you beat everyone about the head and shoulders with your beliefs and claim that they’re the same as our Founding Fathers?

If you can’t answer those questions honestly – without invoking the “this is a Christian nation” argument – then you need to question yourself. Unfortunately, I don’t think enough people out there are smart enough to do that. That is why the church will always be asleep in the light.

With the collapse of Nazi Germany (the third installation of which I will post tomorrow), a gay-rights movement sprang up in Europe, the UK, and the US. I think it may have been spurred on by the revelation that the Nazis had targeted homosexuals for extermination along with the Jews. The original movement gained a surprising amount of steam considering the conservative social sensibilities of the time. In 1966 LAPD officers raided Compton’s Cafeteria to arrest men dressed as women and a riot broke out – the drag queens and transgendered patrons destroyed the place. The next day, they went back to the cafe and smashed the newly-replaced plate-glass windows again (because, you know, destruction is the only way to get your point across when you’ve barely attempted to talk). In 1969, NYPD officers raided the Stonewall Inn, one of many mafia-owned gay bars.

Maybe I should explain here what laws were like in America at the time. Even in places that are now known as firmly leftist – Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco – there were decency laws. Some were targeted specifically towards those who identified as G, L, B, or T – in fact, it was illegal to knowingly run a bar or restaurant geared toward homosexuals. Men were not allowed to wear women’s clothing and women were not allowed to be too masculine. Laws for women were specific enough in some areas that in New York, for instance, a woman was required to wear at least three pieces of feminine clothing. Anyone caught in violation of public decency laws was subject to immediate arrest. Police harassment was commonplace. The First Amendment did not carry the same weight that it carries now; you were allowed to speak freely and express yourself, but if you ran afoul of the morality laws you no longer had those rights.

Nobody can accuse me of not knowing or understanding gay history.

Mafia crime families knew that clubs catering to gay patrons were cash cows waiting to be exploited, so they opened the first regular gay bars in Greenwich Village. They overcharged for drinks and watered down the booze, but they also paid off the police to make raids on their establishments less frequent. On June 28, 1969, four NYPD officers barged in to raid the club. Patrons began to refuse to produce IDs, so the officers decided everyone was going to jail. Male officers frisking lesbians all but sexually assaulted them. The few who were released assembled a crowd outside, even gathering passing pedestrians to witness what was going on. Finally, a lesbian being dragged out was beaten for complaining that she was uncomfortable – she called to the crowd that had gathered, at least 150 strong, to “do something!” They did. A mob of around 500 or so gravitated to the area within minutes and construction materials, particularly boards and bricks, ended up being used. Police officers had to barricade themselves inside the bar they’d raided to protect themselves. Rioters then tried to light the bar on fire, even tore a parking meter out of the ground to break the door down. Riots continued for at least five days, with multiple fires being set.

The riots were bound to happen, but Stonewall was too extreme. Much like the Black Panthers on the heels of Dr. King’s assassination, the Stonewall rioters did more to damage the cause of gay rights than they did justice. It is a good thing that gay rights organizations began to sprout nationwide, but what was the cost? Much of America began to fight back in subtler ways. It would be another thirty years before gay rights movements would be acceptable in any form. Decency laws are still on the books in some areas, merely being ignored because it’s too time-consuming for police to enforce them. Sodomy laws were already on the books in some states, but many – including my home state of Texas – enacted them in the years following Stonewall, not to be overturned for 40 years.

I explained that so I can explain this: I don’t think that a Supreme Court ruling striking down all state-level gay marriage bans or even DOMA is going to be a positive thing for gay rights. I think it would, yet again, set our cause back significantly.

The arguments being made by social conservatives about gay marriage right now are so ridiculous in many cases that I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face as I listen to them. The sanctity of marriage? Really? We have a divorce rate soaring well above 60% and they want to prattle about the sanctity of an institution that the overwhelming majority of our society abuses at an alarming rate? There’s the argument that gay couples cannot procreate. Out of curiosity, does anyone have the latest figures on married couples who either actively refuse to have children or simply can’t have children? Do we now expect all married couples to produce a child for their marriage to be valid? Yeah, I didn’t think so. My personal favorite so far is the argument that children being raised in gay homes are more prone to being ostracized – more simply, bullied. I’m sorry, but how is that my fault? Is it not YOUR prejudices that teach your children to treat other people that way? If you know your kid is being a jerk, it’s up to you to correct their behavior. It’s not my issue and I won’t be disrespected because you’re too prejudiced and lazy to do the right thing. Your religious misgivings about my sexual orientation do not deserve recognition in the law of the land any more than Sharia does.

At the same time, history has proven that gray areas like this (yes, it is a gray area, whether we like it or not – we can’t yet be classified as a race and subcultures do not count) draw intense backlash when the courts issue broad rulings too quickly. As evidence, I present Proposition 8. After the California State Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in the state, the backlash was swift and severe. Prop 8 gained popularity among far more than conservatives in the state. California voters gave Obama a resounding victory – the same people who voted for him also voted yes on Prop 8, making gay marriage illegal once again and proving that opposition to gay marriage crosses political ideologies and is not confined merely to the GOP. Why? Californians of all stripes and party affiliations were saying that the courts, comprised of judges who are not elected, are not the final authority on what the people are willing to accept. Enough liberals in California were not yet prepared to allow gay marriage that the half-hearted, snarky anti-Prop 8 campaign was doomed to failure.

And the gay left is still blaming conservatives. Forget looking inward to figure out how we can change our message, we want someone to blame.

Our society has come a hell of a long way since that late summer raid in 1969. Despite those leaps forward, the gay left is acting as if marriage equality is a life-and-death struggle. We’re not being persecuted by government agencies. We’re not being hounded by the police anymore. I’m not going to be tossed in the clink because I have short hair and my clothing couldn’t be remotely considered feminine. The argument has now turned from ending oppression to government-sanctioned happiness, and really, I don’t need the government to give me a blessing or any special privileges – I’d still love my girlfriend with wild abandon and not give a damn who sees me holding her hand or kissing her in public.

We need to learn that there is a time for all things. Not all forms of equality are going to happen overnight, and my greatest fear is that the Supreme Court would hand down a ruling that would throw the gates open for gay marriage just so society’s pendulum can begin to swing the other way and we’ll end up with hard-line social conservatives at the helm that will undo so much of what we’ve accomplished. It can happen. It has happened before. Now that the real struggle is over, we need to back off a little bit and work on winning hearts and minds.