Two weeks ago, here in the United States, the Labor Department announced that there were 533,000 jobs eliminated in November, the worst single job-loss statistic in nearly 30 years. What will these people do?
The problem is, Americans don't even know, or think they can know, how they got here. In his book, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, the brilliant historian Kevin Phillips argues that the southern and western constituents of Bush's conservative coalition have, over the last two decades, been anesthetized by "evangelical, fundamentalist and Pentecostal Christianity, infused with a millenial preoccupation with terrorism, evil and Islam that greatly strengthened after September 11th."
The most irritating, pathetic aspect amidst this painful disaster is that those who have brought the American economy to its knees and left responsible heads of households desperate, frightened, and angry, without clear solutions – have simultaneously distracted these Americans by pointing to single, divisive issues, arming them with self-righteousness, and urging them to gain the power they feel they've lost by standing up for some false claim of moral superiority.
This is how we have come to a point where religious pomposity has been encouraged to pursue a ridiculous, unnecessary and uncivil political action which actually crushes compassion, usurps freedom, and heartlessly seeks to blame and punish gay people by taking away the redeeming solace of a sacred loving, monogamous, marriage between two adults.
Not only did Proposition 8 pass in California, funded enormously by out of state money from evangelists and members of the Mormon Church, taking away the right of gay couples to marry – those same people are also seeking to dissolve the thousands of marriages that have already been sanctified there.
This is the point. What exactly is the real threat to marriage and families?
Statistics show that unemployment increases violence, not just theft as a measure to provide (ask Jean Valjean), but domestic violence. Simply Google-News "domestic violence" and economy together and you'll see the reports of increased incidents within the home, even while services are being cut back for lack of funding, both from the federal government, and now from the usual donors: collapsing corporations and the foundations demolished by Bernie Madoff. It is another fiendishly dangerous unintended consequence of Bush policies, which are, beyond a doubt, the most destructive threat to families.
On a seemingly smaller level, unemployment increases depression, which may not lead all the way to violence. But it certainly is extraordinarily destructive to families. It's just slower, harder to define, and leaving more blame all around, and often results in years of painful suffering by so many.
Being thrown out of a home can lead to separation of families, damages education and limiting possibilities for the young, and forces desperate, often criminal acts.
Overqualified adults scrambling for jobs displace the working poor and teens. Children become discouraged at an early age.
The damaging effect on families of this unnecessary, mismanaged, greed-based economic disaster will be felt for generations to come.
While my gay friends' marriages are statements of stability, and at last honor the kind of love that doesn't require progeny to keep it together.
So I return to photograph the Christmas-lit home that so inspired me. Some of these neighbors here must feel torn. You see, this neighborhood is overwhelmingly Mormon, of course, given that it is in the heart of Salt Lake City.
Only blocks away is the locally-owned grocery store where, on election day, the middle-aged woman who rang up my purchase answered my "How are you doing today?" with, "We'll see. I'll know tonight if I have to leave my church. You see, I'm gay."
It was an astonishingly bold admission here. I felt privileged by her honesty. I know so many who are so hurt by the decision of their church's leadership to go beyond an already un-Christ-like judgment, to an aggressive, hurtful stance, causing more damage within families than ever does the love they choose to blame.
In fact, Utah leads the nation in suicide rates amongst men ages 15-24.
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