A reader writes of disappointment that votors in the state of California voted for Proposition 8, which defined marriage as the union between a man and a woman—a vote that was considered a slap in the face of gay couples.

The reader asks Matt’s opinion on the issue.

Matt responds: 

I always say I have a hard enough time living my own life, much less trying to live someone else’s.

I don’t believe we really know much while we’re still walking on the face of this earth.  We have glimpses of all kinds of different things.  Knowing yourself is almost an impossible task.  Trying to know anybody else, for me, is absolutely impossible to fathom.

I was asked lately why I’m so angry about some things, and I really had to ponder that.  I think it’s about how man can be so inhumane toward other people.  Like the Nazis throwing Jews in the oven and thinking that’s a good thing.

As a species, we seem to like to take on the role of God.  It seems strange to me that what God wants always seems to be within the bounds of what the speaker happens to believe in.  Very rarely do they proclaim that this is outside of the realm of God.

To me, there’s just too much turning ourselves into God and not allowing God to enter the world.  I happen to believe in the Holy Spirit, and so I think the Holy Spirit is the bearer of whatever change takes place, and change is always different to each person.  There are philosophical debates that go on throughout all of history about matters like this, and that is a study within itself.

But to be able to marginalize people through any way, shape, or form, then gives others the opportunity to feel superior and make others look inferior, whether it be by wearing your glasses, or having to wear dentures, whether you can’t hear without a hearing aid, whether you’re crippled, and so on.

Sadly, I fall into some of those categories the older I get.  Does make me less of an individual?  Possibly. in the minds of some people.

But in my own mind, I’m as good as I think I am.  That’s not ego, it’s looking at realities.  I always fall back into the great last words of Gone With the Wind:  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Hopefully I’ll be saying that as I hobble away, even if I can’t remember where I left my teeth, and can’t remember who I am half the time. 

Matt