Religion Doesn’t Have to Hurt: It’s Time for the Presidential Inaugural Committee to Do the Right Thing–Tea Leaves/The Huffington Post

When I heard the news that President Obama had selected yet another preacher with an anti-gay past to preside at the swearing-in ceremony, I wasn’t angry; I was perplexed. When I read about Pastor Louie Giglio withdrawing from the inaugural ceremony, I also had mixed emotions.

In his letter of withdrawal Giglio states that he does not agree with the president on every issue and that “[d]ue to a message of mine that has surfaced from 15-20 years ago, it is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda the focal point of the inauguration.”

“Their agenda”? Hmm. He mentions that he is being criticized for a sermon that he gave more than a decade ago, but he does not retract his anti-gay statements — or, to use his words, his “agenda.”

The thing that I find most disturbing, though, is that he had decided to decline the invitation and that he was not disinvited by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which announced that it was “not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection,” adding that “they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural.”

Nowadays, with the Internet, it is easy to vet a person’s background. And four years ago the Presidential Inaugural Committee selected another white, fundamentalist preacher who had made anti-gay statements, Rick Warren, to offer the invocation.

When I mentioned all this to my straight-talking partner, a retired postal worker, she remarked (referring to President Obama), “What’s wrong with him?” and then, when I gave her the update on Giglio’s withdrawl, she responded, “Why don’t they just have a woman do it, for God’s sake?”

Obama campaigned on his support for gay marriage and raised quite a bit of money from the gay community. It was also speculated that his support for LGBT rights brought out young voters of all sexual orientations in support of him. I believed President Obama when he said he was doing the right thing. And I do think he was sincere.

There is something wrong with this picture.

When it seemed that selecting a fundamentalist preacher for the inauguration was a conscious decision, I thought that the Obama administration may have decided to throw a bone to the white Christian fundamentalists who did not vote for him and probably will never like him. (It wasn’t that long ago that many white Christian fundamentalists were opposing interracial marriage based on their “religious” beliefs.)

In full disclosure, I was raised atheist, which I write about in Tea Leaves: A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters (Bella Books) “That my parents became atheists when I was a child had worked in my favor — I learned to think for myself,” I wrote. “I didn’t have to unlearn the small-mindedness that too often comes with religion. At the same time, my parents’ atheism sometimes left me searching.”

read the entire article in The Huffington Post

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Averting the Fiscal Cliff: Retired Postal Worker Shames One Percent — Tea Leaves in The Huffington Post

Last night when I was watching the news, there was a short segment about a 84-year old retired postal worker who is helping the government solve its debt problems by sending $50 of his postal pension to the government each month along with the revenue he gets from collecting aluminum cans.

Mr. Garcia, the retired postal worker, is also a veteran and is acting on his sense of public duty. I tend to agree with his wife of 59 years in thinking that he is a little crazy, but the story also made me sad. My partner, who I have been with for almost 30 years, is a recent retiree of the U.S. Postal Service, so I know how small the postal pension can be. The post office wasn’t unionized until 1970. So it is likely that Mr. Garcia spent at least half of his working life in a nonunionized environment — a fact that is most likely reflected in his pension and social security benefits.

But retired postal workers are never short on ingenuity. My partner, Barbara, suggested that the government should charge people five dollars to take a whack with a sledge hammer on an old car with dollar signs painted on it and call it “Make a Dent in the Deficit.” She told me that she could solve all the government’s problems, but no one ever listens to her. I write about Barbara in Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters.

It’s time to listen to our retired postal workers. And Mr. Garcia, by sending his donation to the Treasury Department every month, is telling us something. He says it is about service, but he is putting the one percent of the country to shame. Millionaires and billionaires are the ones who should be helping the country pay down its debt.

Speaking of public servants, let’s start with our representatives. Your basic senator (who does not have an extra leadership position such as Speaker of the House, etc.), earns $174,000 per year. And this is salary alone, not accounting for benefits, allowances, or retirement.

Let’s do the math.

read the rest of the article in The Huffington Post

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