Source Weekly

This week's letter comes from Rob Murray and marks the latest installment in our “Gay Marriage: Is it for you?” series. Thanks for the letter, Rob. You can pick up your winnings, a bag of Strictly Organic Coffee at our office. 704 NW Georgia.

I can only assume you highlighted the sermon by Rev. J.A. Matteson as your letter of the week to provoke response. It worked! Here is my response! It seems the good Reverend is yet another in a line of Christians who feel the major theme of The Bible should be 'ban gay marriage', and not 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you'. Does any thinking person need to read The Bible from Genesis to Revelation to know that is totally wrong? There is no doubt that there are passages in The Bible that condemn homosexuality, along with eating shellfish, touching a woman during her period, touching the skin of a pig, working on The Sabbath and not rotating crops. What the Reverend fails to understand is that the marriage equality movement is not asking for his or his church's blessing. The issue at stake is the rights and protection offered in the civil contract of marriage by the federal government. He challenges us to find one example where The Bible endorses gay marriage. I have one for him: find me a passage in the U.S. Constitution – the actual law of the land – that allows the government to favor one class of citizens over another. Lotsa Luck!

President Obama and the Members of the United States Congress,
Please save the eloquent speeches for those in your own small choir. Please do not continue to insult the intelligence of your fellow citizens. No matter how you all try to dress it up, you have sold us, and the hope of having affordable and accessible health care, down the road. That Dennis Kucinich and his request for a single payer, cover everyone, plan was not the plan considered shows that the true color of the Democratic and Republican parties is GREEN. Sorry, no offense meant to the “green party.”

Dear Christmas-philes,
I don't like Christmas. I don't like it one bit. In fact, you might even call me a Grinch. Gasp. You see, friends, I take issue with a holiday that starts in October and ends in January. I also take issue with the fact that a Long Island Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by shoppers rushing the store doors on Black Friday of 2008. Now tell me, where in the ranks of “Christmas spirit” might that horrifying crime sit? Because I'd love to know. Really, I would.
Curious how, 'round about this time of year, consumers and consumers-in-denial (we all know them – you know, those pillars of organic, green righteousness who adamantly refuse to acknowledge that, ultimately, they muck about in the glorious soup of Western materialism along with the rest of us) alike are positively gripped by holiday cheer, which, I've noticed, seems to equate to rabid consumerism.

This week's letter comes from Rev J.A. Matteson in Redmond who takes this opportunity to go “All Old Testament” on the gay marriage debate while simultaneously defending President Obama. Now that's something that you don't see everyday. Thanks for the letter, Rev. You can pick up your earthly reward, a bag of Strictly Organic Coffee, at our office, 704 NW Georgia.

With regard to Mr. Bates' letter, “Obama the Stonewaller”, I reply: I would agree with Mr. Bates in his assertion that Obama shifted positions on the marriage debate. In his defense I would simply ask: How many times in your life have you changed your thinking on an issue after concluding you were wrong? Is not Obama entitled to do the same? Mr. Bates is correct in spotlighting the change in positions. Where Mr. Bates lost credibility with me was when he positioned himself as a theological expert with regard to the Bible's teaching toward marriage. Mr. Bates has clearly never read the Bible from Genesis to