Random Rave

2008-10-28

None of their business

When I heard the news that California Teachers Association (CTA) donated more than a million dollars to oppose Proposition 8 [MSN news, LA Times], my first reaction was “Proposition 8 is none of their business.” What does a teacher’s union have anything to do with gay marriage? This really got me curious.

On CTA’s web site, they give the following reasons for their position:

“CTA believes that all people should be allowed equal protections under the law. California’s constitution should guarantee the same freedoms and rights to everyone – no one group should be singled out and have their rights taken away. Proposition 8 mandates one set of rules for gay and lesbian couples and another set of rules for everyone else. That’s not fair. California laws should treat everyone equally.”

Their arguments basically rests on “equal protection” of law, but this claim of absolute “equal protection” is not valid. There is a very strict limit on what California Constitution protects. Very simply, not every kind of activity deserves “equal protection.” Clearly, there is no “equal protection” for murder. Well, one might say that this is explicitly prohibited - you would be surprised to know that California Constitution mentions the word “murder” only once and it is not “thou shall not murder.” The point is that reasonable people would agree that murder does not receive “equal protection” from the law, which proves that only some acts are protected.

California has many different ethnic groups from around the world and many of these groups have practices that do not receive “equal protection.” For example, honor killing is practiced in some places as close as St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada [The Vancouver Sun, June 11, 2007], and Jonesboro, Georgia [The Atlanta Journal, July 11, 2008], should we provide them “equal protection?” We also have many residents coming from Africa where female circumcision is practiced, should female circumcision receive “equal protection?” There are plenty of people came to California after many years of running slave factories elsewhere around the world and would be happy pick up their old businesses, should we give their businesses “equal protection?” I would image most people would not grant “equal protection” to these activities.

Because there are many activities that are not under “equal protection,” CTA’s main argument for supporting gay marriage is not valid. What could be the real reason behind CTA’s position? I can only guess.

I have always had a positive view of teachers and have benefited from numerous teachers who taught me. Teachers are loving and caring people. As a whole, they tend to be socially active. In California, they are also politically very active as well. Because of their loving nature, they tend to latch on to progressive ideas. Taking the War on Drugs as an example, the teachers are very active in educating our children about the harms of drugs. This is definitely the right things to do. However, in the case of gay marriage, their loving nature is leading them wrong. A very small but vocal group of gays has for years been portraying themselves as oppressed and outcast. As a society, we have made a lot of effort to accommodate their deviant behaviors. However, they are not happy with being tolerated; they want everyone to “respect” then choice and to regard their behaviors as “normal.” A few activist judges in California Supreme Court overruled millions of voters by striking down the gay marriage ban. Now, the California voters are left with the only way to assert their voice by amending the state constitution through Proposition 8. CTA’s aggressive stance against this voice is dreadfully unloving to the majority of voters.

CTA’s involvement in this political fight does not in any way benefit their members, nor the California education system. There is simply no reason why CTA need to be involved in this. On the contrary, the large sum they donated to fight Proposition 8 can be much better used to sponsor education related projects. Given that the kids in our schools are predominately from traditional households, the stance taken by CTA irritates the parents like me. California does not have the greatest schools, and there is a lot of funding issues just beyond the horizon. CTA would need the parents to support them in these upcoming budget battles. I wish the union would be a little smarter about where they spend their membership dues, at least not to irritate their biggest constituency.

A fundamental flaw in the “equal protection” argument is the lack of moral stands. In the US, the education system has removed all moral standards from itself. This leaves the moral relativism to dominate every level of the education system. There are good reasons to recognize the values of different cultures our residents came from. However, instead of taking the good and honorable aspects of these cultural practices, we get ourselves into the business of accommodating all sorts of strange things. The homosexual act is the most prominent example of these odd balls. The AIDS scare of the 1980’s made gays into a visible group. From then on, gays have played their role as victims very well and have been well rewarded for their efforts. Comparing gays to the drug users, the difference is night-and-day. Because of the lack of standards for right-or-wrong, even though both these two groups practice unhealthy behaviors for temporary pleasure, they have enjoyed very different consequences. One of them has gained many legal rights in the past few years and is on the verge of gaining a constitutional right, while the other are still a target of War on Drugs. My kids came back from school this Monday with red bracelets that reminded them of the War on Drugs. I can not stop wondering what bracelets they will come back with to remind them of gay marriage.

PS: Given that the teachers union has been quite active in pushing for gay marriage as a constitutional right, I am pretty sure that the teachers would be more than happy to push for commemorative activities of this “hard-fought” right in school. There is already 1^st grader taking Field Trip to lesbian Wedding in San Francisco, an bracelet is not that far down the road.

Lev 18:22Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

2008-09-07

Democracy or theocracy

Just saw Joe Biden being interviewed on “Meet the Press.” He was asked about his view on abortion. His answer was quite interesting. Joe stated that he was a Catholic for a long time and his belief was that “life begins at conception.” However, he suggested that there are plenty of rational people with equally valid beliefs, even those in the same Christian faith, and therefore, as a matter of government policy, he would respect their decisions and would prefer to not use the government as a means of imposing his own belief on others.
This seems to be the most rational explanation I have seen on the dilemma faced by Christina politicians, especially those on the democratic side. After all, United States of American is a country of democracy not a theocracy, no one is to simply impose their view on the rest of the population, even if their view is the majority view. If there is validity to the dissenting view, a democracy is to tolerate that dissenting view. This is what makes a democracy messy, but it is also its strength.

Christianity has long believed in democracy
Judaism, Christianity and the Origins of Democracy: Part 1 and Part 2
A sample of views on abortion based on biblical text: 1, 2, 3, 4.

2008-08-10

Love and Justice

The other day, our church program contains a quote from Dom Helder Camara: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I asked why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” The Sunday message was about the commandment “love thy neighbor as yourself.” The pastor talked about levels of love. In connection to the quote, “feeding the poor” would be one level which meets an obvious need, and “doing something about why no food” is the next level which is working for justice. Assigning a high priority to the demand of justice is supported by Mathew 23:23. (“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.)

This message appeared to be well-supported and well-articulated for the most part. However, near the end of the message, the pastor seemed to take a different tone and went to a more mundane route of exalting the congregation to be nice and so on. It seems to be a little out of place with the earlier part of the message, but I did not give it too much thought. Following the sermon, one of the old-timers blurted out something about “liberation theology” in a disapproving tone. I have heard something bad about the term, and am started to wonder how the quote and liberation theology are related. This led to a little bit of searching on the internet.

It turned out that Dom Helder Camara was a famous archbishop of Olinda and Recife in northeast of Brazil, and a influential figure in the so called “liberation theology.” His best-known work is a book titled “Spiral of Violence.” He observed a spiral of violence: injustice leads to revolt which leads to oppression that intensifies injustice. He proposes to break the spiral of violence with Action of Justice and Peace.

Even though the writing was from 1970s, his central observation is quite accurate today. There continues to be persistent and structural injustice in the international trade and within a nation. Take the relation between US and China as an example of relation between a developed country and a underdeveloped country. China performs most of the dirty manufacturing for US, while the people in US enjoy cheap toys, clothes, electronics and so on, the people in China suffers the slave-labor condition in factors and the pollution in the air. Just in case, this is a little to vague for most people, take Apple as microcosm of this relation. The factory that manufactures iPod was basically run as a labor camp, which tens of thousands of workers locked in the factor compounds, while in US Apple employees each got an iPod for Christmas. Maybe China is a little too far away for one to be concerned, then take a look at the news reports in US. The level of violence in some of the inner cities is horrifying – would this be close enough for some loving Christians to do something? The pastor who delivered that sermon did not touch anything outside of US. He seemed to be ready to talk about the inner cities -- at least the poor neighborhoods nearby, but he stepped back from that pretty quickly.

Call me blind, but I don't see the connection between the reputation of liberation theology and the quote of Archbishop Camara. In the book “Spiral of Violence” Archbishop Camara proposed a non-violent Action for Justice and Peace in the same vein of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. One of the main criticism of the liberation theology is its militant messages. So far as I can tell, Archbishop Camara was not advocating for violence.

Labeling a message on justice as liberation theology is at minimum an overreaction. Stepping out of one's comfort zone to love another and seek justice for another is very hard. However, mis-characterizing it is no way to avoid the demand of justice.

Pro 21:3 To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.

2008-07-25

Saint Randy of Pittsburgh

Randy Pausch died today. Like millions who have seen his last lecture, I felt inspired hearing his lecture and felt sadden by his passing.

This title refers to a nickname given to Randy Pausch in some of the blogs after the video of his lecture started to propagate on the internet. Many like me are encouraged by his message, his courageous action in face of death and his encouraging words; we thought of him as a true saint. However, many use this name to mock him. In fact, I heard of an entire radio talk show program devoted to this. The talk show host started with a five-minute segment of Randy's appearance on Oprah Winfrey Show, and then post the question “whether Randy's was Christian?” to the audience. The host's tone was pretty clear that he disapproved what was said by Randy: too much worldly ambitions, too much talking about doing than believing, too theatric, and so on.

Guess the host did not read Randy's book, because the book clearly states that he is a Christian. It is quite unfortunate the talk show host spoke before he had all the information. The last lecture was his “swan song,” his attempt to summarize his life and leave a legacy. The talk show host did not like the nickname because the name “Saint” is reserved for Christians only. Had Randy invoked the name of God every few minutes like a preacher, he would be regarded Christian then. However, his lecture was uplifting, funny, and touching, complaining about the lack of references to God is quite petty and completely missed the mark.

Randy's message was definitely “Christian” as far as I am concerned. He used his own life as an example and encouraged his listeners to follow their dreams. In his presentation, we see plenty of examples of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control. Those are virtues I hope a Christian would approve. No one is righteous outside of the Lord. However, it is hard to miss the fruits of the spirit on display there. These should be enough to demonstrate that he is in the Lord.

This world lacks a hero that people can identify with. Randy is a shiny example in recent history. He faced a terminal illness in the prime of his life with joy, strength, and self-control. Instead of dying quietly, he used his life experiences to inspire millions of people around the word. I believe that this qualifies as the action described in the book of James. James would agree that Randy is a Christian with works.

I am a little disappointed by all the people claiming to be Christians but failed to recognize the fruits of the spirit. Let me close here by offering a couple explanations as how this happens. The Christian community has been under the care of shepherds who put too much emphasis on words, not nearly enough stress on actions. This creates a generation of Christians without actions and can not even recognize actions when they see them. I am pretty sure that this criticism of “St. Randy” is also a reflection of certain political affiliations as well. An inspirational message typically has an element of helping others, this is generally marked as “Democratic” in the US. This is very unfortunate because “love thy neighbor” is a calling for all Christians. However, in the US, inspirational messages are typically from Democrats, such as John F. Kennedy and Barak Obama, and Democrats are generally assumed to be atheists. Furthermore, professors are typically regarded as a Democratic, atheist or extreme liberal. This makes Randy a natural target for Christian talk show host – a message from a professor about helping others and inspiring dreams must be from the devil himself. Too bad for his listeners, the truth that Randy is a Christian with works would have been much better for everyone.

James 2:26 – For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.