The "Call" at Qualcomm Stadium- Translation Needed!

Sara Whitman
Posted November 4, 2008 | 12:42 PM (EST)

Can someone please tell me where in the Bible Jesus spoke tongues? Because they are babbling away at Qualcomm Stadium today in his name.

Personally, I don't think Jesus was a freak like the group filing in to protect marriage against the end of times- equal rights to all. Scary stuff, all of us being equal. Next thing you know, there might be fairness.

After hours of fasting, folks filed into Qualcomm Stadium boasting of 70,000 on their way to fight the evils of Equality in the state constitution.

Try 7,100, tops.

When the going gets tough, the tough does great video editing to make it look full. It wasn't. Although there were folks milling into the press box speaking tongues.

I guess that's because they were hungry and the press had pizza.

I wonder where God is on this debate about treating people as different and taking away their rights. I don't believe in God. I wish I could sometimes but I don't.

But for those who do, I have to ask- do you think God would be nasty? Hateful? So many parts of the Bible focus on being kind, helping one another, and justice. I mean, the Jews got kicked all over the desert, and I don't think God liked that.

Jesus, was after all, Jewish.

I wonder about all those people going to church. I walked up to the Grace Cathedral earlier. It's a beautiful building, obviously built with a great deal of passion.

There is a Keith Haring AIDS Chapel altarpiece. It is a welcoming space. Even as an atheist I feel a sense of belonging. Maybe it's because I'm in the heart of San Francisco and everywhere feels welcoming to me. I'm asked my gender preference- sir or miss- respectfully.

I guess those Christians have different rules than other Christians. It's very confusing as an outsider. The Evangelicals think their version is it. The Catholics, theirs, and the Episcopal's are more forgiving but they think they are right.

And we haven't even hit the Protestants.

I wonder how this fits into legal rights because last I looked there is a separation of church and state. If marriage is all about religion then government should not recognize it.

End of discussion.

I walked the labyrinth. I might not be religious but I can be quietly spiritual. As I moved through it I kept thinking, what kind of person hates so deeply? I have been angry with people in my life- furious in fact. But hate, as I tell my kids, is a powerful emotion that only hurts you.

Never the other person.

I'm not sure that's really true. I am hurt by the hate. I see myself as incredibly average. I write part time, I stay home with my kids, and I do all the suburban housewife activities. Nothing out of the ordinary, to be honest.

Yet all those swaying, crying, singing, dancing folks out in San Diego today are preparing to "defeat" me. To save the world against my kind.

I wonder... who will save us against them?

It's ironic because I cannot even imagine taking away their rights to babble on, or to hold a gathering in a stadium, or their right to be recognized as equal citizens. I don't agree with them, they basically scare me, but I still believe they have rights.

Why can't they practice the Golden Rule? Would they want me to organize to take away their rights?

Vote No on Prop. 8 in California this Tuesday and maybe they'll all go have some dinner and settle down. Realize they are a part of a diverse state, with many people of many different religions.

Rights are rights and, as the California Courts ruled, one group cannot be discriminated against simply because another group doesn't like them.

It's the same in every language- even tongues.