Boycott

If some business does something that does not please you, it is your perfect right not to spend your money there.  If you feel strongly about how wrong that business is, tell your friends and ask them to go elsewhere with their money.

Don't think that, because you a mayor or something that that gives you imperial power to decide that that business cannot do business where you are.  Simple disagreement over something does not grant permission to deny folks around you access to a business.  If the majority does not like the business, it will go away when there are no profits to be made.

It is also not your right physically to impede the flow of customers.  Picket if you must, shout slogans, behave in a manner guaranteed to disgust most folks but stay out of their way.  You can complain and demonstrate, but you can't impede.  If you are right, others will join you.  If the business has a better day for your presence it is a good bet that you're on the wrong track.

The week's nonsense about Chick-fil-A started all this - and it seems it gave the place lots of business, indicating that a goodly number of folks either like what they make or disagree with the atheists that did not want to hear what the founder had to say - or maybe both.

Just because you have a different viewpoint does not give you permission to try to destroy the persons or business with whom you disagree.  You might try being nice - they might listen to you.  Get in their faces, and all you'll get is a bunch of angry people facing you.

The simple fact is that many are offended by the mere though of someone's being a devout Christian. That is unfortunate, but it is a fact, however it does not confer upon the hater blanket permission to revile, persecute, attempt to damage or otherwise hinder the Christian - although if you do so he might pray for you.  \

You are free to say that he contributes to organizations for which you have no use.  He is likewise free to say the same about you, although he probably will not.  There are lots of Christians around,'t likely to convert many to your way of thinking, and you are likely to get really irritated and generally pissy about your failure, so why not find some other rope to push?

You can be a Christian, a Jew, a Mormon, a Unitarian, a Buddhist, a Seventh Day Adventist, a Jehova's Witness, an agnostic (I do not believe in atheists - they make too much noise about what they believe, and anyhow almost everyone knows at least which church from which they are staying away) a Daoist, or just about anything else and we can talk about things in general, or our differences without becoming shrewish and strident.

I've never eaten at Chick-fil-A - but after the past few days I just might have to - to support folks who don't weasel-word things, but tell the truth when asked questions in spite of the fact there may be backlash.  Honesty is underrated these days, and it is a damn shame.

"Gay Marriage"

This one will draw rocks, so let me preface it with a few notes.

• I have nothing against homosexual people of either sex - as long as they do not try to convince me that their way is right and mine is wrong.
• I have transgendered friends.  We don't talk about why or how - we just talk.
• I abhor the misuse of the word "gay".  I think that right now it has too many uses, rendering it meaningless.  I used to be sure I knew what it meant - now I have to think - a lot before reacting to it.

All that having been said, the issue of homosexual "marriage" is my hot button today.  With the foregoing in mind, I object to using words to mean too many things - because they end up meaning nothing.

I know what marriage is to me, my wife and our children.  I know that homosexual behavior is a biological dead end - they cannot reproduce wit assistance of those that they abjure - the "breeders" otherwise known as heterosexual (or, by some, Normal.)

I believe that parents matter - that is to say, parents as my generation understands them, one of each.  Sometimes we are not perfect; sometimes we are not even good - life is a huge crapshoot, and we don't always get what we want.  I don't believe that two mommies or two daddies can prepare a child for a world that largely consists of mommies and daddies and their kids - and I believe that suggestible kids are easy to convince that two mommies or two daddies is the normal circumstance and the kids will grow up inclined to homosexuality as a learned behavior.  I've seen it - I don't believe that it happens every time, but I know it does happen that way.

With the best of wills I can find no body of research suggesting that homosexuality has a genetic component. I do know that there is a body of research suggesting that family environment can help push a confused child in that direction.  That having been said, I recognize that there are many people who are homosexual who are also very valuable, functional people from whom everyone could learn much - and they are not mostly artists, musicians, etc, but are found in all professions, trades, walks of life, faiths - everywhere people are found. But, unlike the rest of us, they cannot make new people without outside help.

And therein lies the rub - they seek 'equality' and to some of them, equality means marriage, please do not ask me why.

I am told that love and commitment are found in heterosexual couples and in homosexual couples, which I can understand.  But there is more to marriage than that - and I do not mean the bearing and raising of children - there are heterosexual couple who cannot make children or will not make children - but that's not the same as not being equipped with the matching parts.

When I suggest a civil union statute (which is all a state-supplied marriage license gives anybody anyhow, for all of its being called a marriage license.) I am told that equal but separate isn't equal, what they want is sameness.  The only way it can be the same is if it is completely the same; partly the same is not identical, but different.  For a same-sex couple, the only way to make it really the same is for one to become a transgender person - then there will be matching parts (if artificially constructed.) Somehow I do not think that this will be well received, and anyhow among the transgendered folks I know (admittedly not many) the males who had married and had children and subsequently became 'female', they still want women for companions.  Does that mean that even though they have had a physical change that they are still male, or that in the process they have become homosexual?  I don't know, and really do not want to ask - I'm pretty old and don't dodge so well any more.

Perhaps I could get over the issue of calling it 'marriage' - but I can't get past 'it's not the same' - because it is not the same, and nothing will make it the same.

I am tired of being diminished, called names, and generally abused by the militant homosexuals because I will not agree to the idea of 'sameness' - because 'same' is another one of those words I see becoming meaningless - 'the same only different.'

That's what I think.  Notice I didn't say 'feel' - apparently the world nowadays is composed more of folks who 'feel' than folks who'think' - and in my opinion it is a great loss for the world.  Self-esteem has replaced self-respect - and the deterioration in many areas shows the consequences.

I'll discuss the current occupant in another rant.

Honor

Apparently there's a lot about being a Muslim that I don't understand.

In Arizona, a father used his Jeep to run over his own daughter and the mother of her American boy friend. His daughter was comatose for several days before dying. The murderer fled the country. So much for honor - an honorable man would not have killed his own child and then run, but stayed and stood for his principles.

Her sin that called the family honor into question consisted of deciding to marry whom she pleased, to get a college education, and make use of social networking used by most Americans in that age range - in other words, become too westernized.

Children are neither property nor are they pets, to be killed out of hand at the whim of a parent (unless, of course, they are not yet born...) and that one who comes here from another land has done so little of the homework as to believe that such an action is proper simply boggles my mind.

Apparently, however, the Powers that Be have decided that it necessary that we softpedal this behavior in order to avoid causing offense to folks who by their very behavior are not civilized, and are not therefore owed any special consideration.

From the reading I have done over the years, this sort of behavior is not something that the Prophet would have either encouraged or applauded - it is the mullahs that have encouraged this sort of barbarious behavior.

Now, if folks that live in Iraq want to behave this way, it is not necessarily any of my concern - they find it OK, and we are not required to take such action if we live among them, nor are we required to approve. We are, however, required not to interfere if such actions are in accordance with the law of the land in that part of the world.

Normally, Americans are a pretty tolerant bunch. We don't however allow such actions to be taken as a matter of law.

As a father, I can state without fear that many of the things my children have done would not have had my approval had they asked, and some might well have embarrassed me, but none dishonored me - the reflection is upon the adult doing the deed. I don't believe in collective guilt, and at some point my children stand or fall on their own. If they ask for my opinion, they get it and if they ask for my help in an endeavor that is not dishonorable they'll get all that I can give.

But once a child is an adult, there is no more that I can do - they then have their own identity.

I wonder - had that child been a son, would that so-called man felt free enough to kill him, or are sons more valuable? I think I know the answer, and it pleases me not one damn bit, because it does even more to devalue women.

At some point a stand must be taken, and such people must be held accountable - and folks who would join us here in this great nation have to understand the rule of law - and understand that such behavior is intolerable in a free nation.

I sincerely hope that that barbarian father is caught and returned to face the justice he has denied his own daughter.