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10 Reasons Gay Marriage is Wrong

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural
things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. Also
apparently those homosexual animals have picked up some unnatural
behavier

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could
never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars,
the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed
at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and
divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were
allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay
couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to
marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more
children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like
ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country.
That’s why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model
at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to
raise children.

10) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy
behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has
legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

/action ducks

stolen from here

   It’s interesting that when I post nonseriously, the responses are generally much more abundant and insightful and thoughtful than when I post a serious thought, where they are sadly lacking.  Intriguing I say.

    On a vague socio-religous note, our sister hall may (or may not) think we’re going to hell.  It’s moderatly funny to see reactions to some of Palmer’s ideas.

    Most predominant is how I, personally, do not much care for Paul or some of his works.  In the words of a freshman….”Uh, but you don’t have a choice!!” , which made me chuckle.  I’m dong a pretty good job of not liking him for not having a choice.  It’s not that I hate Paul; I just feel he isn’t consistent with some of what Jesus taught and also seems to be inconsistent with a great deal of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible.  I’d prefer to not go in depth on Xanga, but feel free to punch me in the face and force me to talk to you about it.  I also realize I’m coming from a much more Judiastic background then many people reading this, so maybe a little explanation here will help.  Paul is the one who we seem to get our ideas about the “old” covanent from, and where we seem to draw most of our ideas that the “Old” Testament has less relevance.  Yet, Jesus seemed to indicate the importance of Torah, never dismissing or undermining its ideals.  (Please remember when he “violated” the Law, he never violated Torah; he went against what is known as the Oral Torah which is found non-orally now in Talmud and the Midrashim.)  So from a society to which the Torah is the most important thing God has given to man, the dismissal or even any sort of minimization of that is difficult to get around. 

    Perhaps the problem isn’t with Paul, but our interpretation of him.  How much of the Tanakh (the Old Testament) was doctrine, theology, etc, and how much was stories illustrating the nature of God and how he interacts with the world?  On the other hand, most of the New Testament seems to be doctrinally focused.  We seem to assume that this doctrine is proper for all times, and what Paul said to one place is true always.  I would probably go ahead and on a standardized test mark “strongly disagree”.  Let’s say in one church, Paul really did want the women to be quiet, not teach, and go make babies.  I don’t think that means it’s true for all places.  Pauls letters were…letters.  Written to specific places, in specific circumstances, with specific problems.  It’s not to say they aren’t divinely inspired, but that doesn’t make them appropriate for all cultures and times.  Romans 9-11 (a particular favorite enigma of mine, by the way), Paul does a mess of explaining God’s plan with the Jews and Gentiles, messes with free will/presdestination, and creates a genereally confusing mess worthy of being called divinely inspired.  Does that make Paul a terrible vessel for God to write through, or does it mean these thoughts are way above us, and we don’t really need to be so concerned about them if we know the nature of God, his love for us, and his unchangeability?

Anyway, Cedarville may read this, question my theology, and ban me from going on MIS trips, but thats ok.  Questioning is great; it is healthy, and needs to be done much, much more if we are all really going to be able to experience God and understand how great are the depths of what we cannot understand

If the doctrine of the a triune God is true, then why would God have hammered so hard in the Torah that “God is One”, forbid worshipping of anything else, and told the Jews to reject any prophet, no matter how seemingly good or accurate his predictions were, if all along “the plan” was to bring this “Son of God” who was also God, and this “Holy Spirit” who was also God, both of whom are to be worshipped as Yahweh was?  This seems, to me, to be setting up the Jews to reject anything that is claiming to be, or pointed at as “god” of some sort that is not directly the great I AM.

It has been some time.

This will hopefully be an isolated selfish post.  Selfish as in it’s mostly about me.  Except for the next paragraph.

I recommend reading mi hermano’s livejournal.  I suppose to someone not-me or not-him or not-knowing-him-much it may not make all that much sense and may get quite boring to read, but if you know him its interesting.  It’s me, if I was more Buddhist than Messianic Jewish, and sometimes I think if he was more inclined to my specific religious beliefs, he would be me. 

I’m recently inspired to be extremely transparent to all those around me.  I know it’s not all that common for me to have a very serious post, but I think this will be one.  I also know everyone in the world doesn’t read this, so writing this is not an excuse for saying that I’ve been real with everyone, always.  Maybe it will get my thoughts clear.  I don’t feel that my thoughts are jumbled, but I bet things will come to memory that I need to work on that I hadn’t previously thought.

Sometimes people say that I’m a difficult person to get to know, that I somehow manage to get to know them really well and understand them, but they feel I keep them out while I do that. In the end, they (usually girls) get very frustrated at how closed they feel I am, and…give up?  I don’t think give up is the right word, but due to the understood inadequacies of written/spoken word, I’ll pretend you’re on board with what I’m trying to say and move on.

My reasoning is that if somone cares about me, they’ll ask questions.  That’s how I grew up; but I realize that not everyone is like this.  Many people feel uncomfortable with what they feel is prying into other people’s lives, and wait for a person to feel comfortable.  I don’t ever get to that point.  I can count on less than three fingers the people who I will just tell anything too.  Those are people beyond the Palmer boys.  Usually I can say anything to any of them.  It’s not that I’m a closed person or am hiding things; it’s just not how I roll. I don’t hate you.

But, there may be confessions to make.  Some people recently have called it a defense mechanism.  I don’t see it that way, because I’m fully aware of what I’m doing.  If that makes it not a defense mechanism, then its not…but if it’s still a defense mechanism if it’s something you’ve thoughtfully chosen to do.

To the point, I don’t want girls to like me, and I act accordingly.  This creates an aura of shallowness about me, and makes a number of people have a very difficult time getting along with me.  I’m not being someone who I’m not…I’m really very random, quirky, and goofy.  I choose not to be anything but random, quirky, and goofy, around select groups of people.  By people, I mean girls.  And especially right now, I mean freshman girls.  I’m chauvenistic, so I feel they’re the ones most likely to do something silly like fall in crush with me.  Perhaps if I appear to not be a guy they want to be with, they won’t want to be with me.  Much pain, tears, and anguish (especially on their part; on my part usually just comes annoyance) will be avoided, and when they decided to fall in love with another boy, maybe we can be friends then.  Or, maybe they’ll be so convinced I’m shallow and not worth their time that they’ll give up.  That’s ok with me…really, no one has to like me for me to be happy.   But sometimes, people decided they should be friends with me, and then we are friends.  Not that I never annoy the people who are my friends…but they don’t usually understand why a not small number of other people think I’m shallow.

But part of it is defensive.  Much anguish of a personal and even tearful sort has been caused by girls who decided they were in love with me (and I use love shallowly) who should not have been in love with me, and I felt nothing for in return.  I’m not claiming I’ve been hurt worse than other people; just that I have.  I feel no bitterness; but I don’t feel anything at all.

Where I am now, I may just be unable, in my current state, to actually care for a female who is a non-family member.  It’s not something I’m claiming to be correct, proud of, or even want (because I don’t want that), but I don’t seem able to.  It’s in God’s hands….I’m not concerned with it.  Is that a cop out?  Maybe.  I’ll consider that later.  I honestly just want to be able to be friends and smile.

Part of the difficulty may be I view myself as predominantly a transitional friend.  If you’re new here, chances are I’ll talk to you, make you laugh, feel comfortable, and hang out with you for awhile.  Then you’ll find your group of friends, and won’t “need” me anymore, so I wander off, in search of someone else who “requires” my friendship.  In the same way,  when someone is going through a lot of pain in their life, oftentimes God leads us together, and we spend several weeks/months in close communication sharing a great deal of intimacy.  Then when their crisis abates, they don’t “need” me anymore…they don’t need support or the constant need of feeling loved.  Uneeded, I wander off as they rejoin their “old” friends again.  I’m not upset with this, really at all…it’s how I naturally work.  I’m not sure if that makes sense, but that’s how I explain being a transitional friend.  I don’t even really like “hanging out”, oftentimes.  What most people do for fun seems pointless, a waste of time.  I’d rather being doing something alone, reading or gaming (not that gaming is productive, but I enjoy it a whole lot more than, say, bowling) or having a meaningful, uplifting conversation with someone who is hurting or who thinks the way I do (more on that later).  So it’s difficult for me to be a “normal” friend, because I don’t enjoy doing the things that friends normally do when they hang out.

Also, I do feel as people don’t think the same as me. Many people feel as though no one understands them.  I don’t lie awake at night feeling this way.  I just learned being in Maine, and hanging out with with aforementioned hermano I linked too, that I really liked hanging out with someone whose brain traversed the same twisted trails that mine did.  I can’t sit with too many people and let me my drift into intricacies of religion or aspects of modern western society and say absolutely whatever I want, and have them understand, raise the bar, and discuss.  It’s pleasant, and it makes me realize I’d like a girl who I can do that with too, which is not what I’ve ever had.  But it might not be necessary; my mom doesn’t connect with my dad on that level, but they’ve been married for more than 25 but less than 30 years and are madly in love.

I’ll let you know my life is in transformation/reformation.  The thing I’ve mentioned least is God, which is the most important.  He desires my life to be in balanced, for me to be selfless, yet have full responsibility for my actions, for me to fully love others, and yet allow myself to be loved in return. I have extremely difficulty being loved, believing others can be selfless, and just a hard time liking girls at all.  Mikey P, who was until this time unammed, is a Buddhist, and I realized the beauty in many of their practices, and how well they fit in to a Judeo-Christian way of life.  Meditiation is very important, and it brings peace and focus.  What is prayer, but meditiation with a focus on God, speaking with Him, desiring to be spoken to, and led in ways that words cannot express but the individual soul can understand?  God speaks to the individual, when he desires, in a way that reflects His beyond-ness, and I’m not sure how often I’ll even be able to come close to explaining what God has taught me with the inner, experiential being.  I desire God to speak to me, to reform me from the inside out, to purge me from my worldly desires of the earth and look at people with love, and be able to understand that God WILL work in other people, even to a greater extent than He has worked in me, and be able to give and accept love.

There’s much to speak of, things I’ve read about God this summer, things He’s revealed to me, but the times are late.  I used to be able to stay up so much later.  le sigh.