Friday Film Buff: By the Book

I don't like to get too political on my blog, though I'm sure many of you have noticed my "Straight for Equality" badge over on the left side of this page. Truly, though, I don't see how wanting equality is really political so much as it is patriotic. Equality is written into the formation of this country, and, though it was really little more than a concept at the time, it was an ideal toward which we as Americans would strive. Equality is the mission of America, and, over the last two-and-a-quarter centuries, we have taken great strides toward achieving it.

Yesterday, here in Colorado, we took a step backward.
The civil union bill, which would have afforded gay couples many of the rights already enjoyed by straight married couples, was voted down 6 to 5. Now, in my opinion, the civil union bill wasn't equality, either, but it would have been a step toward it.
Freedom is a difficult prospect at times, I know. Where does one group's freedoms begin and another's end?
Well, I like to use an analogy that I borrow from Wayne Dyer: my right to walk down the street waving my arms around ends with your right to keep your nose shaped the way that it is.
People have a right to hold religious beliefs against homosexuality. (Kind of a sad way to worship, but, hey, your call.) What they do not have is the right to use those beliefs to infringe upon the freedoms of others.
I look at the issue from a different perspective. The civil union bill wasn't about giving rights to anyone. It was about no longer taking away rights that people should have had in the first place. Last night, our elected official in Colorado voted to continue to withhold rights . . . in America. And they did it based upon pressure from religious groups. I am embarrassed for my state today, and - to all those people in my state who are today still without the rights that they deserve to have by virtue of their American birth - I am sorry. I bear the burden with the rest of the people in Colorado for allowing this to happen.
Today's Friday Film Buff selection is a documentary from 2007 that, obviously, a few more of us in this state ought to have watched: For the Bible Tells Me So.

Oh, and here's some food for thought today:
Don't wear different kinds of fabrics together. That's Leviticus 19:19.
Don't cut the hair at your temples or trim your beard (which, I guess, means that you have to have one.) Leviticus 19:27.
Adultery is punishable by death - for both parties. Leviticus 20:10
Leviticus 20:9 says that if you curse your mother or father, you must be put to death.
All in favor of not basing 21st century law on the dictates of a 3000-year-old text that forbids grazing different types of cattle together, say "aye."