Today in school we had a suture lab where we practiced sewing stiches on pigs' feet. Once you get over the slight revulsion of the meat product that was in front of you, it was actually quite fun. In fact, I would now like to suture as many things as possible. And so I ask you, on a scale of 1-10, how much do you love healthcare?
If you answered between 8-10: You will put yourself in harm's way next time we are together so that when you have a hemorrhaging flesh wound I can sew it back together with the suture kit that I pledge to carry in my back pocket. Why is this a good indicator of how much you love healthcare? I'll tell you when I'm stitching you.
If you answered below 8: I'm frankly a little disappointed. There are only so many pigs' feet in this world to go around. You think about that next time you are eating a ham sandwich, and then ask yourself if you wouldn't rather have me practice stiching on YOU, rather than on this poor little swine.
My thoughts on Proposition 8: totally unrelated to above topic. It just so happens that I'm thinking about both topics right now. In fact they are so unrelated that it is probably slightly blasphemous that I have written about them in the same post. But now that I've drawn your attention to that sad fact, I ask your forgiveness.
Proposition 8 is the marriage ammendment act that is currently on the November ballot in the state of California. It would restore traditional marriage to "only be between man and woman."
Before reading further, consider that the following websites and articles have much more credibility than I and probably help illuminate the issue more than I can:
http://www.preservingmarriage.org/http://www.protectmarriage.comhttp://www.whatisprop8.com/Opponents of the proposition argue that this ballot is discriminatory and intolerant. I don't feel that it is. To me, and to millions across the globe of various creed and religion, marriage is a sacred institution designed for the forming of families and raising children. Marriage has become secularized in many ways greatly because of the great service it provides as the fundamental building block of society for the past thousands of years. This social convenience, however, does not leave marriage open to be definitively changed by those who do not subscribe to it or believe in it as a religious rite.
Part of what makes America great is its roots in religious freedom. This is the great nation to which the pilgrims came primarily for freedom for religious oppression, from being forced to believe in the Church of England. While I would never force someone to believe what I believe, the courts are seeking to force their agenda upon fundamental religious beliefs. The judicial system has absolutely no right to dictate what marriage is and doing so greatly impinges on religious freedoms and essentially forces religions to either similarly change their doctrines or else be labeled with bigotry and discrimination. It forces children to grow up in a world where homosexuality is sanctioned and religious freedom denied. For those that think merely changing the definition of a word has no religious ramifications, consider Massachusetts, where the Catholic church was forced to choose between placing children in homosexual families, despite their religious beliefs in heterosexual marriage and family, or shutting their doors. They are no longer in operation.
A word on tolerance. I find it to be a very severe word when applied to how we treat others in the human family. Do I think that we should have tolerance for homosexuals? We should, in fact, have much more than tolerance. To merely tolerate someone seems to be somewhat of a travesty. There are many friends in the gay community that I know and love and that deserve to be respected and honored for their friendship and their contributions. We certainly can all live and work together, regardless of any differences of opinions or beliefs. But to be forced to subscribe to something that is against my fundamental conviction that marriage between a man and woman is divinely instituted and that children deserve to have a mother and a father, to me, devastates the religious freedom that originally made this country great.
