All Comments (6)

I'd like to offer some brief comments on morality and absolute truths vis a vis sexual orientation. Homosexuality is far more about who one is 'programmed' to fall in love with; than actual sex acts. And apart from the murders of thousands of European homosexuals in the Nazi death camps along with the Jewish and Slavic peoples ; the most horrific crime against homosexual persons took place at the hands of conservative Christians.During the early years of HIV/AIDS,the religious right fiercely opposed any public finding for research into HIV and the development of treatment options.The subsequent delay in acquiring pharmaceuticals to counter HIV replication, denied thousands even a fighting chance at additional life. By any standards, their actions were utterly devoid of morality. This is not an exercise in painting all Christians as bigoted and hostile.

.
I think "the jury is still out" about whether "the human spirit", as Rev. Anderson used that term, is or is not "a supernaturally-based concept." For most intents and purposes, however, that does not really matter. "Evolved" or "endowed," our human spirit casts its leading light like an unquenchable candle aflame in the nights. It guides so many walking determined through dark historical periods, vision unblurred, mission crystal clear.

If we hold on to it, steadfast, undistracted, at the very least, we can hold on to what people like Lincoln, Gandhi, Rosa Park, and their like, treasured and left behind as legacy most precious. The human spirit: It is next to godliness. If there be God, then the human spirit is God permeating us; if there be none, then it is all that brings to the world the concept of godly.

How can one man or group of men torture another? First they must cast off the human spirit. They must de-humanized themselves in an attempt to dehumanized their victim.

Sure, we will be derided for harboring such "wooly" ideas and "whoozy" feelings. Sure, it is so "impractical," even seemingly inane and useless. So "unheroic," so "wishy-washy." So "defeatish." Such can be said too of what are elemental to it: love, justice, charity, trust and hope, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, etc. These that make us human.

Ah, but the prices we sometimes must keep paying for it!

Not so fast, Jimmy.

You are calling for the impeachment, conviction and punishment of bush and cheney, right?

If not, well..............

Frankly, I have a hard time taking anyone who claims there is any religious or humanistic justification for torture seriously.

I think the best part is bringing *this* up:

"President Reagan called the Declaration “a standard by which any humble person on Earth can stand in judgment of any government on Earth.”"

Cause the pro-torture Fundamentalist minority which holds sway in our government now bases, well, pretty much *everything* they do on the presumption that only *they* are qualified to make moral judgements for others, whether it's what sexual orientation gets equal protection under the law, what religions will be treated as equal in American society, even how many diseases parents should be able to protect their children from.

It's all part of the same thing, really.... claiming that they, not we, get to say what's acceptable or not.

Even when the majority's against them on something like torture, or health care, or our children's future... they insist they are the only ones who get to say.

We have to say no. All of us. To all of that.

'America doesn't torture' should be a no-brainer. That's why all the obfuscation.

Rev Anderson -- Lovely - and thank you evoking the human spirt and not the holy spirit, and for not mentioning God (except in quoting Lincoln) Jesus, faith, or religion in your anti-torture appeal.

Obviously, you understand that none of those supernaturally-based concepts are necessary to explain the rationale for not torturing our fellow human beings.