This article via Pam's House Blend (http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=4006) is a perfect follow up to Jefferson's Statute and shows the dangers of what happens when Jefferson's analysis of religion is ignored. Here are highlights, but I recommend you read the entire piece:
The harm experienced by two Florida and South Carolina families this Christmas because of religion-based bigotry against gay and lesbian individuals is very real.
Many evangelical Christians this year may have to admit to their children that they've been perpetrating an "untruth." Perhaps they are made just a smidgen more uncomfortable by the fact that they believe truth was embodied in Christ - who according to their religious teachings was a person born different than any other human being.
So at a time when many Christians are cautioned not to forget the "reason behind the season," they are confronted with the fact that they must close the door on a part of their son's or daughter's childhood by telling them that certain stories about the partially eaten cookies, the hand-scrawled note left behind and the soot smeared on the floor were really not true.
But the young lives of a future generation will go on albeit perhaps a bit more cynical and somewhat dejected from discovering such a truth. For the families of Pat and Lynn Mulder of Auburndale, Fla., and Elke Kennedy and Jim Parker of Greenville, S.C., the lives of their two children will not be going on. The day-to-day gifts of joy they gave their parents, siblings and friends ended with their deaths - and no amount of perception will make their future lives and their gifts to those around them a reality.
I pray that in 2008 more people will come to realize that no living human has all the answers whether derived from a fallible understanding of the Bible or other religious writings.
1 comment:
I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas
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