Dear Humanity,
Darkness descends upon us at every moment, and where love should rule it is hatred which is flourishing to fuel a modern nightmare of epic proportions. Yet Humanity has tread down these dark paths before and there is always hope that reason and understanding will deliver us from the injustices feasting upon our society, trying to devour our civilization, and trample the ideals of Liberty and Freedom.
I am an American and yet everywhere I read online in the news and on blogs how American Values are crumbling in the name of saving "American Values". Some equate "American Values" to "Christian Values", and yet the values that Pastors, Politicians, and others of power and influence are spreading are neither "American" nor "Christian" but sound more and more like the rants and ravings of Adolph Hitler.
The First Amendment of the Constitution Of The United States Of America declares freedom of religion. Religion and the Government are separated so that no religion can take away the rights of those who practice a different religion. America is NOT a Christian Nation but one composed of citizens that practice faiths as diverse as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Wicca, and people can believe in nothing religious if they choose not to. Freedom to have faith in what you choose to have faith in is a core American Value, and at its core is about respecting diversity and not subjugating those who are different to the conformity of any one set of beliefs. A wise man once sang, "You can believe what you want to believe but you don't have to live like a refugee.". That wise man was Tom Petty and those lyrics perfectly describe freedom of religion whether he intended it to or not.
Yet the Chief Justice of Alabama's Supreme Court has been quoted as stating "The First Amendment only applies to Christians." (http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/alabama_chief_justice_warns_he_will_not_observe_tyranny_of_federal_gay_marriage_rulings). Business owners across the United States are stating that "Freedom Of Religion" gives them the right to discriminate against people their faith does not support or agree with. Thus far they have been applying this to not servicing Homosexual couples, but how long will it take before they apply it to people of other faiths? The saddest part in all of this is the fact that people who try to use Christianity to justify discrimination are not practicing Christianity at all.
If you're a Christian then you're probably aware of the phrases "Love thy neighbor" and even the Golden Rule comes from the Bible multiple times, and yet people claiming to be Christians are preaching the exact opposite. One news article I read recently quoted a Pastor as stating "I think every single one of them should be put to death. Christians shouldn’t be doing it, I’m not going to do it, it’s the Government’s job to be doing it.”
(http://www.inquisitr.com/1663920/pastor-logan-robertson-tells-gay-christian-i-pray-that-you-will-commit-suicide/). When a man who should be preaching about the love of God, the tolerance taught by Jesus Christ - that even the Roman Soldier that may feed a Christian to the lions can be forgiven, would support the genocide of an entire population of people based on who they love, is sickeningly horrendous and abhorrent to any decent human being no matter what faith or lack of you practice or not practice. To quote Chris Claremont, "God loves, man kills.".
One Christian belief is that only God can judge a person and that this act occurs on Judgment Day. Another belief is that humanity should not pretend to be God. Many attribute that lesson or moral to the story of Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" or at least its many film adaptations, and it takes it in a sense that only God can create life thus Victor or Henry Frankenstein played God in creating the Monster. Yet isn't judging others for their lifestyle, for the sins you perceive them to commit, sins that Jesus Christ taught and preached could be forgiven, in actuality attempting to "play God"? When you go before God on Judgment Day and He asks you why did you hate these people whom he created so passionately, why did you help deny them equal treatment as you yourself would expect to be treated, what will your answer be? Will you explain that you believed God wanted you to hate them? To persecute them? To not love them as your neighbors and fellow human beings?
Jesus Christ would NEVER condone genocide, or the killing of "sinners". He was about redemption, that no soul is a lost cause, that nobody is beyond redemption due to God's love for all that He creates. You know who wanted to subjugate people for their beliefs? Who persecuted millions and claimed it was righteous? Who labeled people and then rounded them up to be systematically slaughtered? That man was Adolph Hitler, and NOT Jesus Christ. Hasn't Christianity surpassed the bloody history of the Crusades, Inquisitions, Pogroms, Witch Hunts, and killing heretics because they do not conform to your morals, values, or beliefs?
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." was written by Thomas Jefferson over 200 years ago and it is the most essential declaration of American Values ever written. Over 200 years later Americans are still trying to catch up to Thomas Jefferson. It does not matter if you are black, white, yellow, tan, brown, blue, green, purple, or striped like a zebra and it doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, short, tall, fat, thin, homosexual, straight, male, female, transgender, asexual, bisexual, it does not matter what you believe politically or spiritually, if you're disabled physically or mentally, no matter what WE ARE ALL EQUALS! We're humans, and all humanity is equal. We're a species, and it's about time we acted like one. It doesn't matter what side of a made up line somebody drew on a map that you come from, you are still a human being and you were BORN with the same civil rights as everybody else, and nobody can change that.
They say that nobody's perfect, but if that's true then by default everybody is perfect because it's your flaws that make you unique and thus there is nobody else on this planet exactly like you thus you are perfect because you're the only you this world has.
Too many young people have killed themselves because they felt they could not find acceptance or support in this vile and malicious society that has been brewed like a festering oil to tarnish diversity and individuality. Parents use hatred that's preached to them to justify not meeting the needs of their beloved children. A parent's love in such an environment can feel more like hatred because hatred fuels why their child's lifestyle is unacceptable to them. To the person being torn between family and who they are it can be a living nightmare. It shouldn't be this way.
If you are feeling suicidal from not feeling accepted or wanted, or by being pressured by society, family, debt, work, or anything that seems to be spiraling out of control, please heed these next words. If you end your life at this lowest point of lowest points then you will never know or experience anything better than what you've already done. Once you're dead you're done, this mortal life ends and whatever comes next if anything takes its course. I'm not saying things will get better, but there's the chance, the opportunity that it could...but dying takes away that chance and opportunity completely. By killing yourself you'll never know if things could get better, where life may take you, or who it may take you too. You are the sum of everything that leads you to this moment in time and if you end that, then you'll never be better than you are at that moment...your chance for growth ends with death. If you keep on living though each trial and challenge keeps building onto the sum of what and who you are for better or worse, but either way you'll be more than you were at the moment you were at when you may have stopped it all.
Freedom has to be salvaged from the attempts to constantly limit and destroy it. It shouldn't be this way because by now we all know humanity is created equal and that we ALL deserve equal civil rights and freedom. Yet there are those who fight to further the darkness of hatred, to discriminate against diversity, and disseminate their putrid cause to others like the NAZIs once did with propaganda campaigns. The purpose of this blog is to show that discrimination is NOT an American Value, that love is better than hatred, and to help show humanity a way to persevere through the darkness and hopelessness that infects our civilization.
Sincerely,
Bobby J. Mayberry
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