Mirror Image

even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies
when we sat down to eat, he said,
"not everybody can eat like this."

and because he wanted to be rich
or because he actually thought he was rich
he always voted Republican
--Father, Charles Bukowski

We are all murderers and prostitutes --
no matter what culture, society, class, nation one belongs,
no matter how normal, moral, or mature
one takes oneself to be
--R.D. Laing

If you talk to God, you are praying.
If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia
--Thomas Szasz

Dear Mummy, Dear Daddy,
Now I'm nineteen as you see,
I'm handsome, tall, and strong.
So what the hell gives you the right to look at me,
As if to say "Hell, what went wrong?"
--Bad Boys, Wham!
_____________________

Years ago -- more than are comfortable to remember -- Ranger learned a factoid about schizophrenics in a college counseling course that pertains to the U.S. citzenry today.

Schizophrenics are unable to identify their own bodies when tasked to identify themselves in a photo lineup. So disconnected are they from reality (or at least, perceived reality) that they cannot make this connection. Some otherwise normal people suffer "face blindness" (prosopagnosia), and fail to recognize themselves or others. As a society, it seems we share in this morphological disconnect.

A recent U.S. foreign policy initiative is to ensure gay rights on the international scene:

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy, including the potent enticement of foreign aid, to promote gay rights around the world (U.S. to Aid Gay Rights Abroad, Obama and Clinton Say.)

This would be fair and equitable in an alternative universe, but how does this relate to ours? How can the U.S. force this initiative upon the world when we are so conflicted about the rights of gays at home? That's spelled h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y, folks.

Republican front-runner Rick Santorum just mistakenly compared gay marriage to polygamy. The military just rescinded "Don't ask, Don't Tell", and many cases like those of decorated aviator 18-year aviator Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach forced out of service due to his sexual orientation remain to be resolved. It took the U.S. 17 years to repeal DADT, and 220 years to end the prohibition of gays serving openly in the military, yet -- whammo! -- now we are the moral arbiters on all issues gay?

The issue of civil unions or marriage for gay couples remains highly contentious, as does everything issuing from that, including inheritance issues and deathbed rights to shared medical coverage for cohabiting partners.

A large portion of our society believes God does not approve of homosexuals, and certainly not of their coupling; may as well betroth Vietnamese pigs, far as they're concerned. For these people, how does their Christianity comport with the spreading of an ethos abroad in which they themselves do not believe? Do we view the rest of the world with disdain, and figure the heathens should "tolerate" what we reject?

May gays marry? Adopt children? Can they practice sodomy in all states? Is this rightly even a state or a federal issue? Do we as a society endorse the state department policy (outside of Portlandia?) Are our taxes earmarked to support gay rights issues?

Even if the goal is understandable, the mirror image is unrecognizable.