DON’T WE REMEMBER???

The continuing hassle in Arizona is discouraging. The legislature passed a law saying that store owners and service providers could discriminate (refuse service, etc.) against gays when it violated the religious beliefs of the store owner.

The governor vetoed the law. It remains to be seen what happens next but the courts will never uphold the law.

First, the law is not aimed at gays alone; that’s a cover. It’s aimed at blacks as well, and other minorities. Have we forgotten the sermons preached throughout the South on how the Bible ordained the white race as superior, and how the “best” things for blacks was to submit to being “civilized” by their white masters?

Check Dutch Reformed Church’s theology during the Boer War for additional affirmation..despite all of Christ’s teachings, and those of other prophets. If a man wants to discriminate he will find reasons, even in theology---but that doesn’t make it right, or Christian.

Even after the Civil War, many churches remain divided, with North and South wings---though they call them something else…divided for years over  race relations.  (In Lexington there is the  Presbyterian Church, US (South) and Presbyterian Church, USA (North) with still differing views here. “South”, for example, does not permit women to hold certain church positions. (And you thought that war was over!)

It’s not, and you are invited to show your solidarity with those who support equality by taking part in the anniversary of a great civil rights march on Frankfort outside the Capitol Wednesday morning at 10.

And now to a similar situation abroad.

In a reverse argument here, Mr. Putin sent the world to the brink (this is written Sunday before it was clear just how  the Crimea mess he has created would play out.)  In arguing that he sent troops into that area to “protect the rights” of Russians living there he cited the exact argument Hitler cited when he helped precipitate World War Two..when he occupied the “Sudetenland" section of Czechoslovakia claiming German settlers there were being abused and had asked Mother Germany to come to their aid.

The parallels with Crimea are exact..and frightening. For Putin to forget..more likely ignore..what started the “Great Patriotic War” (and let’s remember Russia suffered more horribly than any other nation, certainly more than the US, Britain, France, etc.) is to belie recent Russian history…and, hopefully, may spark some resistance from Russians still alive, or smart enough, to remember their history and the lessons it taught.

Doesn’t Putin remember?

Do we?

I'm just sayin'...