WHAT YOU WOULD MISS

https://www.facebook.com/robert.h.johnson.1/posts/1577720378931575

I saw that link, (above) to an article that said that a number of Bishops had written a letter telling parents to kick their transgender children out onto the streets. Needless to say, I was shocked and horrified that any religious leader would encourage parents to turn away from their children, under ANY conditions!

Bishops, of all people are the ones who I would least expect to discourage a loving relationship, between family members, and these Catholic Bishops did just that!

Hasn’t your “president” sewn enough divisiveness in the world? Do you really need to do more of his dirty work, FOR HIM, by tearing apart your OWN family, because your religious leader tells you that that is the way the Bible SHOULD BE INTERPRETED? Why not learn to read that Bible yourself, and notice that the holiest man in it says also: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Better yet, learn to use your own common sense and grow yourself emotionally and spiritually by learning to love and accept, rather than judging and fearing your own children, and the gay and non- binary children of those around you. I’m sure that you have enough good judgment and common sense of YOUR OWN, that you don’t have to constantly rely on your religious leaders to tell you what’s right.

To my way of thinking, a “leader” sows a spirit of cooperation and acceptance and understanding, rather than a spirit of divisiveness and fear and judgment.

I will never turn away from my own son, or betray his trust, no matter who tells me to. I wouldn’t want to miss out on all the wonderful things that he will be doing and experiencing, in his life. ………..I want to be there, when he graduates from High School, and I want to watch him through those same tears of pride and joy when he graduates from college, and maybe even when he stands waiting for his spouse- to- be, to walk down the aisle to him, and say “I do”.

If I were to turn my back on him, I would be cheating myself of the opportunity to enjoy my future grandchildren. I wouldn’t have anyone to make me smile, in my old age, when I’m sitting in an old folks’ home. It would mean that if my son ever won the lottery, or made himself rich and famous, I would have no part of it. I wouldn’t have any right to share in the joy of his fame, or the fruits of it, and he would have no reason to share them with me.

Knowing, what I know now, of what kind of “people” those Catholic Bishops are, I am prouder than ever of my atheistic views. When a religion requires that one turn one’s back on family or on needy people, that is a religion that has NO RIGHT to call itself a “loving religion” born of a “loving god”.

As far as I know, those who profess to “follow the Bible”, or to live by it, like to assure themselves and any who will listen, that the god of their Bible is a “loving” and a “forgiving” god. When in the same breath, they would encourage a parent to betray their own children because of a difference in their children’s genetic code, I have trouble believing that the god of their Bible is a god that loves ALL his/her children, and I want no part of any god made out to be a “father to all his children” that plays favorites.

My earthly father loved me unconditionally. He had 3 children, with our mother, and they BOTH loved each of us unconditionally. They weren’t perfect, but they didn’t play favorites, and they wouldn’t have put us out on the street if we’d turned out to have been gay.

I turned out to be Epileptic, and there was a time in which I would have been burned at the stake, (by “good Christian folk”) for having visible seizures, because I would seem to have been consorting with the devil. Shortly after the end of the Salem Witch Trials, those same “good Christian” folk decided that there had never been any such thing as witches, and a little later, scientists unraveled some of the mystery behind the Epilepsy that got some of those “witches” burned at the stake.

The fear was taken out of the sightings of the seizure disorder, and replaced with understanding.

It’s very odd that these Catholic Bishops would want to call attention to this kind of flaw of logic in their holy scriptures, by having us regress to a point of essentially repeating a similar era in our less enlightened past (while tRump votes FOR the death penalty for the same segment, that these Bishops would have us shun). After all, the Bible does say “Love thy neighbor…….” and “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone”. Have none of those Bishops ever sinned, then? Not in their deeds, and not in their thoughts?

And what do the Bishops have to gain from a lot of gay minors being suddenly bereft of the love and protection of their parents (besides making it easier for tRump to make this segment of our society disappear)? Who would benefit by a growth of the army of the faithful, and how?

Do they plan to take them in, themselves in order to brainwash them into becoming “good servants of their god? Who will feed these children, once their parents have thrown them out onto the streets? Who will shelter them and take them for medical treatment, (which, unchecked, becomes epidemic, and endangers entire communities) and see that they stay off drugs and in school?

Many religious people prioritize religious education over one more laden with science, history, and geography, especially for their girl children. The Kingston Clan in Utah is a prime example. Girls are expected to marry before they’re 18, rather than finishing high school, and going to college.

The Kingston Clan has the local police in their pockets, so that girls that run away are quickly and easily returned to their semi to totally captive state,……….. Your Bishops don’t need police help. “Going against the Church” is unthinkable to a “good Christian”. Also, when a religious leader rapes a parishioner or their child, his superiors pay hush money to the family out of the charitable funds garnered from their loyal followers. They call their parishioners a “flock” because a “flock” is easily led.

And The Church has become so powerful and influential, that the leaders have convinced your politicians that the Bible story of Creationism should be taught as fact, in schools, in place of the science of evolution. They want to simply erase and ignore what Darwin proved in his book On The Origin of Species in 1859! And Betsy DeVos is backing that plan with bills that will enrich private schools that promise to teach this nonsense, along with “nationalism”. She prioritizes that over even the KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING, in her own mind, of policies regarding the rights of disabled and gay students.

Politicians stand to benefit, when their constituents are uneducated, in the basics of science, because that would make them aware of the realities of climate change, and how we affect the climate. They don’t want us to be able to learn good reading comprehension at school, because then we could read and understand that the tax bill, currently on the floor of the senate does only harm to the already poor and middle class, while enriching only the politicians and the 1%. They don’t want us to be able to speak to people in other countries, to get perspective on how a FAIR government treats its people, so they’re seeding the country with hate for those that already speak other languages, and cutting school funding for the teaching of those other languages, and for The Arts, even though those things are proved to create neural pathways in the brain that make it possible and easier for us to continue to learn, new things, as we age.

It bears mentioning that when I say “they” I will usually mean the GOP and the Republican party, because THEY are the ones currently in power (by dint of sheer numbers) in Congress.

Another thing that they don’t want us to fully comprehend, by knowing our history, is that Social Security was a fund that was built up using the money withheld from the paychecks of the working class, so that we would have something on which to retire, when we needed it. They are trying to phrase their intent to cut that fund and borrow from it, such that the uneducated masses will believe that that fund was an “entitlement” or GIFT from the government to her people, and that now our government can no longer afford to continue to give us that lovely “GIFT”.

It wasn’t a gift! Your parents and grandparents paid into it, all their working lives!!

They are also trying to shut down “net neutrality”, now, so that we have a harder time, getting word out (unless we’re very rich and able to pay for fast net service) about our pesky demonstrations and protests, against the tax cuts that they want to give to the rich and the CEOs of large corporations.

So let’s sum this up:

The Republican party under tRump’s “leadership” doesn’t want your kids educated. They also don’t want your kids to have affordable healthcare, or clean drinking water and food to eat that’s not poisoned by the toxins that factories are now permitted to dump into the rivers (by tRump’s decree). Let’s wait to see if they rebuke the Bishops that penned that letter telling you (their loyal followers) to disown your own children, but I’m not holding my breath.

When the Republican party doesn’t reprimand your religious leaders for the horrible disrespect and disregard that they’re showing for families of transgender and non- binary children, will you still follow them as loyally as you have?

Will it take seeing your own kids suffer for lack of clean food and water and affordable health care, before you turn your back on the government that’s turned it’s back on you? Will it really take a religious style miracle to make you consider that California could (and would) be better off divorcing herself from the insanity, and voting herself NATION STATUS?

If you’re already considering it, you’re not alone……………There are whole organizations that are working toward more independence, and or secession for California, AND WE’RE TAKING ALL OUR KIDS WITH US along with these Fortune 500 companies:

• 3: Apple
• 5: McKesson
• 19: Chevron
• 25: Wells Fargo
• 27: Alphabet
• 47: Intel
• 52: Disney
• 59: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
• 60: Cisco Systems
• 61: HP
• 81: Oracle
• 92: Gilead Sciences
• 98: Facebook
• 119: Qualcomm
• 123: Amgen
• 156: Molina Healthcare
• 157: PG&E
• 161: Aecom
• 178: Gap
• 187: Visa
• 198: Synnex
• 214: CBRE Group
• 217: Western Digital
• 219: Ross Stores
• 222: Farmers Insurance Exchange
• 235: Edison International
• 247: Core-Mark Holding
• 264: PayPal Holdings
• 265: Applied Materials
• 280: Sempra Energy
• 302: Pacific Life
• 310: EBay
• 314: Netflix
• 320: Reliance Steel & Aluminum
• 326: Salesforce.com
• 330: Live Nation Entertainment
• 357: Charles Schwab
• 383: Tesla
• 387: Nvidia
• 395: A-Mark Precious Metals
• 405: Franklin Resources
• 406: Activision Blizzard
• 414: Sanmina
• 430: Avery Dennison
• 440: Lam Research
• 443: Adobe Systems
• 453: Clorox
• 464: First American Financial
• 465: Symantec
• 468: NetApp
• 474: Mattel
• 493: Robert Half International
• 498: Yahoo