Sadness, The Nation Throughout

This week has been filled with so much heartache, sadness, fear, and loss.

There are many things that have happened that will never hit the news.
Like the death of two people caused by a drunk driver. These two were friends and bandmates of one of my personal favorite bands, Tartanic - who I try to go see every time I hit a renaissance festival.

Some things graced the news for only a few moments, then were forgotten and overshadowed by more prominent events.
Like the murder of a pregnant woman by the hands of her boyfriend in Dallas which was shortly overshadowed by a much larger tragedy:

The Bombing in Boston
Which caused much confusion and speculation across the nation.

And then there was the explosion in West, Texas.
This one especially hit home with me, as West is a destination my husband and I take every year. On our way to the Texas Renaissance Festival in Todd Mission, Tx, we stop in West for Kolaches - on the way there and back. I love this town and everything that it stands for. At one time, Qeelin and I pondered over the idea of moving that direction.

They say that these things happen in three's - both locally and nationally. It makes me wonder which of these was number three and which was starting over with a new count.

It also makes me think of our Nation as a whole. I have witnessesed the power of community through these tragedies. Throughout history we have proven time and again to overcome any adversity that comes our way. We survived the Revolution. We survived the Civil War. We survived Pearl Harbor and two world wars. We survived Mt. Rushmore, the earthquake in San Francisco, space shuttle deaths, and numerous hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes. We survived Oklahoma City and Timothy McVey. We survived Waco and the Branch Davidians. We survived 9/11, the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and many, many more terrorist attacks. We survived every single president ever elected including two Bushes, a Clinton and a Nixon. Chances are good that we will not only survive, we will overcome.

The United States, as a Nation, is a fighter. We may go down a few times, but we come back swinging. We ALWAYS come back. And in reality, it doesn't even matter who's sitting in the Oval Office. The president does nothing to help us overcome - he never has. We have done that on our own.

Together we stand. Together we fall.
This week has been a tough one for our country, and there will probably be more.
But we will overcome.
We will come back swinging.
Because we are AMERICANS. And that's how we roll.

God bless America.
God bless us, EveryOne.

A Conservative for Marriage Equality

I am conservative.
I believe in small government.
I believe that abortion is murder.
I believe that God is real, and that Christians have every right to express themselves.
But I also believe in marriage equality.

Many of my Christian friends balk at this. In their minds, marriage is between a man and a woman, period.
I respectfully disagree with this. Because Facebook is a terrible place to get in an argument, and people tend to not fully read or understand what's being said, I felt that a blog post was the best place to explain my stance and my viewpoint.

The main debate about marriage equality surrounds the biblical definition on marriage. The term "marriage" is never actually defined in the bible. Anywhere. It talks about husbands and wives, it describes weddings, and it goes into "sexual immorality", but it doesn't ever talk about the word "marriage".

In fact, marriage is never given a clear definition until Karl Marx defined it in his manifesto. Yes. I said Karl Marx. You know, the communist? His definition is what has been used since the 1800's. I don't know about my other conservative friends, but I sort of shy away from ANYTHING that has a communistic history. And THAT is what the United States has used to define marriage. Not the Bible. Not the Constitution. The Communist Manifesto. Scary, isn't it?

My second reason for supporting marriage equality is this: marriage in the United States is a legally binding contract between two adults. A contract. Two people of the same gender can enter into business contracts, property ownership contracts, and can adopt children together. How is a marriage licence any different, legally speaking?

My next reason is this: we don't want government involvement in our religion, we don't like it in our education (which is why so many are turning to homeschooling), and we don't like it in other very important aspects of our lives. Why are we allowing it to regulate marriage? If we allow the government to regulate who we can marry, what's stopping them from regulating where and how we can worship, where and how we can educate our children, and what we can and can't do for a living?

My final thoughts: Marriage equality is not, and should not be, a religious issues. Religion has nothing to do with a legal contract and should not. That's one of the points of our founding fathers when they created the constitution - separation of church and state. I am not going to go into how I feel about homosexuality in and of itself - that's another issue all together and really has no bearing on the marriage issue in my mind. The two are completely separate for me.

Yes. I am a conservative.
Yes. I am for marriage equality.
And yes, I hope I just made you think.
God bless us, everyone.