Holding My Nose and Diving Deep I will begin this essay referencing my background in physics: Gedanken is German for

thought, implying a thought experiment, meaning considering some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may or may not be possible to actually perform it, and, in the case that it is possible for it to be performed, there need be no intention of any kind to actually perform the experiment in question. The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question. (Wikipedia) Famously explored thought experiments forwarded as examples: Schrodingers cat, Maxwells demon and Einsteins relativity. So, heres my social thought experiment: Four couples come to a (generic) city office to apply for marriage licenses: an Atheist couple, a Buddhist couple, a Hindu couple and a Wiccan couple. Two questions: 1. To which couple would you assign covenant to their marriage? 2. Which and when are their marriages legal? Ill wait I specifically avoided listing Christian, Jewish and Muslim in the above list, as they are a part of the three major monotheistic religions for which covenant has broad and deep meaning. It translates from briyth in the Old Testament and diathk in the New Testament. For the old: 1) Covenant, alliance, pledge a) between men 1) treaty, alliance, league (man to man) 2) constitution, ordinance (monarch to subjects) 3) agreement, pledge (man to man) 4) alliance (of friendship) 5) alliance (of marriage) b) between God and man 1) alliance (of friendship) 2) covenant (divine ordinance with signs or pledges) And for the new: 1) a disposition, arrangement, of any sort, which one wishes to be valid, the last disposition which one makes of his earthly possessions after his death, a testament or will 2) a compact, a covenant, a testament a) God's covenant with Noah, etc. With respect to legality and state laws, when the couples sign the paperwork, their marriages as far as state laws are legal, whether physically consummated or not. Any public ceremony an announcement openly of an internal commitment is up to the couples involved, and their respective faiths traditions. I also avoided things like age, ethnicity, gender, such that if youre heterosexual reading the above list, youd think male-female, then have to grapple with the notion of covenant. Hence, for African American/Black American/Diaspora voters covenant, has a lot to do with a time honored tradition in the black church still in practice to this day: jumping the broom. A
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Holding My Nose and Diving Deep popular movie carries the title as well. A brief history illustrates the angst in the community on marriage equality. Jumping the broom: this was a faux ceremony offered by the slave owner to his property (constitutionally, a fraction of 3/5th a human) it allowed slaves to forge familial bonds and have children, yet the master held onto his right as owner of human chattel to sell the husband, the wife, the children off with legal impunity. So, as I read Slavery by Another Name, (Douglas A. Blackmon) Im touched personally by the story the Cottinhams took the name of their former masters as they went like my own relatives in droves to the preacher/Justice of the Peace to get hitched proper and legally, probably in the fear if slavery came back, the nightmare of chattel/cattle existence would resume. The NAACP has now asserted that marriage is a Civil Right. Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law, NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement released Saturday. The NAACPs support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people. The well-funded right wing organizations who are attempting to split our communities are no friend to civil rights, and they will not succeed. This public position was apparently an emotional announcement for Mr. Jealous, recalling that his parents biracial union was itself illegal (as was my own cousins Wilbur and Sandy), and miscegenation once vigorously discouraged from the pulpit. The same article articulates this historic angst: A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll in November found that 58 percent of African Americans called same-sex marriage unacceptable, while 35 percent said it was acceptable in terms of their own values and moralsjumping the broom Ive previously sighted. However, it was inevitable that other groups women, gays/lesbians, tea party advocates were on historys sidelines watching if this marching thing in the streets along with fighting in the courts and getting persons into elected office was an effective recipe for change. That IS what occurred during the movement in the 50s and 60s, John Lewis (D Georgia), the last living Civil Rights figure alive and in elective office. Devoid of fractional constitutionality, weve held our noses and dove deep, accepting the notion advertised this nation from its founding rested on Christian principles, absolving history of the legacy of slavery (and therefore, reparations), obfuscating the decrepit status of Africans kidnapped from their homeland, packed between one another, vermin and human body wastes, the Diaspora surviving raped by the appetites of masters for black flesh

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Holding My Nose and Diving Deep simultaneously defining that flesh with which they enjoyed coitus (or any other penetrations) as non-persons. Et al, et alother others the founders never expected to deal with. Weve had the luxury of classifying Atheists, Buddhists, Hindi and Wiccans as we once were: non-persons. The Founders had the luxury of making Native Americans non-persons after they helped them survive their first winters in a new part of the world. Women were also non-persons, as they did not gain the vote until the Suffrage Movement immediately starting after the Civil War: culminating in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. (Wikipedia) In these waters, there be monstersused to be the warning signs posted from mariners that thought there was an end to the world, thus in the unknown there must be the dreaded leviathan, fire-breathing dragons, sea serpentsmonsters, i.e. creatures of such unknown characteristics and qualities to confer the title other to, even though technically if they had existed: the sea was originally theirs. So, this election is historic as well as important in many regards. We are given this canard as democracy a fragile experiment is balanced on the edge of a razor, the choice being a plutocrat whose own faith once defined African Americans as non-persons (and since hes been in it all his life, we can assume he did once believe thus), and a president that has evolved due to the lack of message control in loose-cannon subordinates. As for one party over the others sanctity of life: political operatives depend on ignorance of jurisprudence, as the best bet for overturning Roe v. Wade was in the Mississippi Personhood amendment that would have likely gone to a conservative leaning 5-4 Supreme Court. It was roundly rejected by a state as conservative, as RED as Mississippi. That is how a law is changed, not by a man in the Oval Office. His only duty to the court is to replace sitting justices when they retire or expire. As such, I dont believe there will be a storming of the bastille, there will be no LGBT couples suddenly demanding of Christian churches Evangelical or African American to perform a marriage ceremony. I think theyre wise enough to allow the Justice of the Peace in City Hall to do that, or go to venues that already do it now, to our blithe ignorance and naivet. Citizens United is an oxymoronic term that is not appreciated, nor understood. It is Swift Boat on steroids; it is democracy in peril. It is elections decided by a handful of billionaires and corporations. Political parties will no longer matter, well become one, giant INC. If we are not careful, we will reap Marxs opiate of the people and Sinclair Lewis prophecy: When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, and carrying a cross. Hedge fund manager in tow!
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