These issues involve everyone, and all should speak out regardless of who shares your life, your home, or the other half of your bed. For at least three years, many of us (GLBTQ, straight, or none of the above) haven’t honestly spoken out when it was most needed. If you voted in this election, should you be proud? Yes. If all you did in the past three-four years to guard the fundamental principles of this country is to vote, should you be proud? Of course not.

In the past three years, members of one political party have stood up and screamed at the top of their lungs What They Believe. Most members of the other major party, if they stood up at all, have merely said, “No.” Morality is not limited to registered Republicans, but too few of us non-Republicans have stood up in the past and said “We are moral people. We support the principles of our nation. We think and believe that all people should be treated equally and with dignity. We know that we are a stronger nation because we embrace a variety of religious beliefs. We know that any two consenting adults have the right to be married in the eyes of the law. We will not allow this country to deny rights to 10-15% of the population. We will not allow the Constitution of this nation to be rewritten to exclude certain individuals. If you want to be married in the eyes of your version of God, get married in your version of God’s house – but that marriage is not legal in the eyes of the law until you are also married by a judge.”

Morality begins at home, with how you treat other creatures, and very importantly, how and where you spend your money. You cannot completely divorce your belief system from how you spend your money. I’m always asking: Would a moral person, or any self-proclaimed *Christian*, shop at a company where they underpay female workers, promote men over women, refuse health care benefits, open despise GLBTQ individuals, and account for 10% of all imports from the nation of China where they violently oppress Christianity? Obviously, I think not, but millions of self-proclaimed members of the *Saved* spend their money buying WWJD bracelets and tshirts manufactured in China.

Do you take public transit? Do you shop organic? Do you pay extra for your electricity, because that kind of electricity comes from sustainable energy resources? Do you refill your waterbottle, rather than purchasing a new plastic bottle of water each day to combat the grains of plastic showing up in beaches across the world? Do you walk out of your house of worship when they deny basic human rights to your friends, family, and coworkers? Do you shop local markets rather than the ubiquitous evil WalMorte?

“But life is expensive,” you say. “Things are cheaper there.” Cheaper at what cost? Did you really need the gigantic bag of chips, 5 new tshirts, and all of that plastic? Houses of worship also require money to stay afloat, so stop giving your money to humans who contort the messages of the Divine in order to discriminate.
Can you make this level of choice with everything you do? Very unlikely, but you can begin today and see where you get in 4 years. The United States is being left behind in education, technology, care of the environment, health care, and tolerance by dozens of other nations. Where will we be in four years? Exactly where we deserve to be if we, each and every one of us, do nothing.

If anyone wants to start pointing fingers for the state of this nation, we must each begin by blaming ourselves, We the People.

mmc

from an uppity bisexual editor
won’t play the blame game or shame, dame!