What a great response

Hi all, I've been lurking. A friend just sent this to me today. I checked snopes.com to check the validity and they say it's true, but slightly edited: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/raskin.asp - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: What a great response! This was in one of the national papers recently. Last week in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AMERICAN UNIVERSITY was requested to testify. He did so. At the end of his testimony, a right-wing senator said: "Mr.Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man & a woman. What do you have to say about that?" Raskin: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible." The room erupted into applause.

Great response, to be sure. I am a long time student of biblical and ancient religious studies. If I remember correctly, there are a number of messianic rules that we have a tendency to overlook because they are a bit harsh in todays world. The most prominent one in my mid, is that if your child is disobedient or disrespectful, to stone him or her..to the death. That also goes for anyone who mixes different cloth patterns and styles. And you thought the reaction of the 'queer eye for the straight guy' crowd was mixed as far as stripes and polka dots was harsh??...stoning?... The way I try to look at things is that the one thing our creator wants us to be is to be happy. Happy with who we are, where we are on this earth and to emulate the basic goodness as proposed by the words of Jesus. As far as I know, Jesus never had a lot to say on the negative side, except against the money lenders, the lawyers and the "better than thee' crowd. So, go for it! My best friend from years ago used to be a miserable, confused, suicidal, depressed, alcohol and drug dependent lost child, until he...now a she...discovered her true self, and met her soul mate. Now together for more than 20 years, she is the happiest I have ever known her (them) to be, and to think that some high and mighty politician, who hasn't the faintest idea of what is truly contained in the bible, espouses his lifestyle over mine, or hers is ludicrous. We live our lives according to our precepts, and we try to live a good life, a perfected life...yes...perfected. meaning we try to be the best person, the most perfected person WE can be in this world. True to oursleves, true to our friends, true to our husbands, wives, lover, whatever. Live a good life, be a good person, and the rest will take care of itself. I can only hope that out politico will someday find himself on the 'drudge report' with a headline of something to do with a swiss bank account, a can of crisco, a digital camera and a box of gerbils, saying"Your honor...I had no idea?" Leave peoples relationships out of the political scope of things for the most part, and the world will spin along just fine.

Though I grew up in a Christian family, it never really was my bag. Back when I got married (yes, to a man), he wanted to get married in a church. I went to buy a indexed bible to see if I could find something in there nice about marriage that I would be willing to have included in the ceremony. Bless the bookstore, because right next to the bible was a book called "Ken's Guide to the Bible"(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0922233179/sr=8-1/qid=1144346469/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9679542-6995259?%5Fencoding=UTF8) It's kind of like Cliff Notes for the bible and in the old testiment section, Ken uses icons to mark repeating themes in the stories like common misconceptions about bible stories (icon: bull with ring through nose), violence against women (icon: woman being struck by lightning), general violence (icon: figures with raised clubs), aggregious sex (icon: balck box with the word SEX). I started to read Ken's book first, was amazed by what I was reading and quickly turned to the section of the bible I bought to verify the passage. It is the first time I was ever inspired to read so much of the bible. The bible is raunchy, violent and bizzare. It's a great work of fiction. Everyone should read it!

NICE!!!! I love it!!! Jeremy