Hot Air

I've had little to say for the last few days, because it all seems same-old same old.  I've been feeling burdened and burned out by work and by politics.

Marriage equality has had a booming month so far, with 32 states now having equal marriage rights.  Appeals are flying but the Supreme Court seems content to stay out of it unless and until there is a conflict between circuits.  Fundamentalists are throwing hissy fits and demanding the right to discriminate against LGBT people on the grounds of religious freedom. To which the answer is, if an adherent of a white-supremicist church (and there are such) demanding the "right" to discriminate against a black person in the civil realm, would we allow it?  How about a refusal to serve a Muslim woman in a head scarf?  But I've gone on about this at length elsewhere and I haven't the energy to do it again.

The Republicans (or the right-wing fanatics who have taken over the Republican party) scarcely even pretend any more to support democracy, but admit that they want to prevent Democratic constituencies from voting.  They  continue providing money and power to the Koch brothers, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, and the big banks.  And the climate is continuing its dangerous change. It's hard to conclude anything than that we are screwed.

The Roman Catholic Synod on the family backtracked on making overtures to respect LGBT people, let alone welcome them. The conservatives are smirking at their slap-back of Pope Francis.  And yet, the transparency in the final document and the votes on each paragraph are such that it appears there is a more closely divided church, between conservatives by-the-book happy to lay crosses on other people's shoulders, and progressives of more pastoral instincts.  Polls show a surging majority of young American Catholics support gay rights and marriage equality.  At least arch-conservative Raymond Cardinal Burke, known for his love of garments liturgical, has suffered another demotion.

In the Episcopal Church, there's been the agonizing slow-motion crash at General Theological Seminary in New York.  I don't know much about seminaries, but I know a lot about secular academe, where the faculty have been demoted to a minor managerial role as the institutions become increasingly corporatized.   At GTS, it  bears all the hallmarks of heavy-handed institutional leadership, a hot-house atmosphere with a weakened faculty making dramatic ultimatums, and a board digging in its heels.  One would somehow have hoped that a seminary would do better,  both the faculty and the board.

And the Northern White Rhino species is down to 6 individuals, guaranteeing they will go extinct.

Stupid humans.