Some Thoughts on Equality.

(I have a few more India related posts almost ready. But in light of some more recent news, I wanted to take a few minutes to address an issue that has been on my heart a lot over the past few weeks.)

Today I overheard a few students at my Christian college discussing the whole gay marriage issue. And yes, it is an issue. It's an issue because for some reason people think it's okay do deny equality to other people. As if any person has enough power to dictate whether another person is allowed the same ability to get married.

The particular conversation I overheard was especially upsetting. These individuals were complaining about signs stating that in forty years those opposed to marriage equality will look as foolish as those who were opposed to civil rights look now. These students were arguing that the two movements can't be compared because the civil rights movement was about skin color and the gay rights movement is about sexual orientation. Apparently they aren't the same.

Well, duh.


What these students failed to realize is that the critical similarity isn't something about the people being victimized. Yes, one issue is about physical appearance and the other is about love. The similarity in these two issues is people. Being victimized.

For whatever reason, America is still trying to pretend that church and state are separate. Whether or not that separation will ever be real remains to be seen. I think what is really important is that Americans acknowledge the fact that we are living under a set of rules called the constitution and bill of rights and by continuing to live in this country, we give our consent to adhere to those rules. Through these documents, we have asserted the fact that all people have the same rights.


NOT "all people who fit into how my religion determines people should be".

NOT "all people who comply with heteronormativity".

Just "all people".

I still don't know exactly how I feel about reconciling sexual orientation with the Bible or with God (I mean, how can I possibly know what God thinks about his gay children? But he made them! So it's not like he totally hates them, that's for sure). But I do know that Jesus loved the outcasts. Jesus hung out with the sinners. And I know that it is through faith that people are saved, not by their works or deeds, or even their sinlessness. Because if it were, we'd all be screwed.

So why bother using the Bible as a way to deny people basic human rights? I don't think it's doing Christianity any favors, and I don't think it's making God proud. I'm not saying he's ashamed (Like I said, I can't by any means speak for what God thinks and feels). But really, do we think God's up there with a big foam finger, #1 fan-ing all the people with the "one man one woman" signs? I doubt it.

Anyway, back to the conversation I overheard: it scares me a little that those people next to me are the future of Christians with a college education who will go out into the world and populate churches and be a part of society. Could they really miss the point of those signs so greatly? Do they really think two equal rights campaigns are that different because one addresses skin color and the other sexual orientation? The point here is that they are about the rights of people.

In America, we have stated that people get rights.

In the Bible, Jesus told us to love people.

How could we be getting this so wrong?

...because I couldn't resist.

Riding the Knight Bus to Hyderabad.

The next several posts are intended to document the travels that the ISP group took during our two and a half week tour of India. Believe me, it was a bit of a whirlwind. Our first stop was Hyderabad, the capital city of Andhra Pradesh.

Oh, hey giant Buddha chilling like the Statue of Liberty...

 

Most of our group made the first leg of the journey by way of train, but we couldn't get enough seats on the train for everyone, so Kelly, Karmen, the professors going with us, and I took a bus instead. Although it was a bummer to be separated from all of our friends on the first part of the journey, the bus was actually more direct and we spent about five hours fewer traveling that night. After putting them on the train, we went to get coffee and grab some dinner with the McClelland family. It was nice to have just a little more time with my little friends.

I got to take one final walk around the now empty apartment (which was honestly pretty strange) and then grabbed up all my stuff and headed to the bus station. It was an interesting adventure to get on the bus because we started in the school car which took us to the station, waited there for our teachers and anyone else that was catching the Hyderabad bus, and then took a sketchy little shuttle out of the city about forty minutes to the side of the road! Then we waited on an emergency pull off type road for our real bus to arrive and then switched over.

The bus itself was pretty awesome. The seats reclined pretty far back and even had a lever that made the foot part come up like a reclining chair. I loved that there were curtains drawn across the windows because it made me feel like I was riding the Knight Bus from Harry Potter (also contributing to this feeling was the wild rocking as the bus avoided other traffic and hit bumps in the road and all that craziness involved in being in a vehicle in India).

The minute we stepped off that bus in Hyderabad, it was pretty clear that we were in a much bigger city than Coimbatore was. Hyderabad is the capital and has a significantly higher population density. It was a little bit stressful, but not terrible.

I spent the first few hours there walking around with Kelly, Karmen, and our Indian professors while we waited for the rest of our group to arrive on the train.  There were so many beautiful things to see there, and I'm glad I got those few hours, because the vast majority of the time we spent in Hyderabad was inside of classrooms!

Birds and birds...

...and more birds.

Hyderabad is one of the biggest Muslim cities in India, and so it was during these few days that we had our entire unit on Islam for our religions class. We spent several hours learning about Islam and even visited a madrasa, which is the school where Muslim children learn all about the Qur'an and sing the beautiful verses. Another class session that we had was with a man whose entire career has been about studying syncretism and contextualization of Christianity in India. It was really fascinating and challenging (more on that in the next post).


Hyderabadi biryani is the most famous in all of India. Biryani is a rice dish cooked with spices and usually a meat. Everyone has their own recipe for it, and there are regional differences all over India. So on our last day in Hyderabad, we went to Paradise to get ourselves some of it!

Number Ten.

As you may have read about in this post, I have a list of things that I'm trying to get done over the next few years. Over the summer I started another item, but it wasn't until I was in India that I finally finished number ten:

Knit a Sweater.

I got the yarn for it on Vinalhaven Island over the summer and it was, in fact, from Woolwich, Maine. Represent! It was labelled navy, but because it wasn't mass-produced in a factory it has pretty obvious variegation of color between blue and gray, especially between the different skeins.

I used the "Pert Classic Pullover" pattern from Lion Brand Yarn (It's on Ravelry.), which was a good beginner pattern, but it's kind of a lame sweater. It's almost painfully basic and doesn't really have much shape. I think that the pattern was for making 3/4 length sleeves, but I didn't realize that til after I'd made it and added several inches to the sleeves in order to make them (almost) long enough for my arms.

Knitting away on the trip to Ooty.

As I said, I started it over the summer, but I only finished the back piece before I left. I brought it with me as something to work on while I was there, and it turned out to be a really good choice. There were hours in cars, on trains, and during home stays where I had nothing to do and whiled away the time knitting. And as it turns out Northern India is COLD in December! That is what finally prompted me to finish it up during the last week there-- I was freezing! And it really came in handy for Nepal too!

Finished product in Dehradun.