Universal

Universal human rights would be the same civil rights for every human being, no matter how they look or what they believe or whom they love or where they were born. Everyone, everywhere.

This requires a change in human perception. Rather than granting people respect based on their looks or how they sound, it requires granting all people the same respect on first look. This challenges an instinctual human tendency to classify. It is a survival instinct. Is this object safe or dangerous? Life experience shapes the form this instinct takes as people age. Education, ignorance, love or trauma can shape this instinct, for functional good or dysfunction.

For people old enough to have been shaped by life, learning to disregard the tendency to classify people as safe (good) or unsafe (bad), based on very superficial criteria, is nearly impossible. It requires tremendous practice and mindfulness. And, even then, the mind reverts to old habits easily.

Meditation in Buddhism is a tool to overcome the dysfunctional mind, the cluttered mind. As a humanist, I find meditation helpful. However, I find that I have been able to develop my own little instant-replay system. As I go through my day, I evaluate my responses to people and my interactions with them. I try to keep that more objective consciousness running, like a surveillance camera, which I can replay after an interaction or an experience.

I have learned a great deal from this practice. I have been able to use some of what I have learned for the better in my life. I have also learned how deeply judgmental and prejudiced I tend to be towards people. Decades of dyed-in-the-wool habits, which are exhaustively relentless, just under my conscious mind.

Prejudice is simply stupid. Judgment is not in itself a bad thing. As a nurse in an acute psychiatric ward, I was paid for my preformed understanding of certain dysfunctional behaviors. I was also paid to make professional judgments about dealing with these behaviors to avoid violence or unnecessary pain. I want an experience cop around if I am in a dangerous situation. His informed classification of a behavior, based on training and experience, could lead to a judgment which could save my life.

Universal judgments about racial, ethnic or sexual groups are counterproductive and unsafe. They lead to violence, war and social regression. Perhaps the current political correctness of certain social classes and arenas is a good form of behavioral therapy for nonconstructive prejudices and judgments. However, the tendency of the politically correct to condemn all judgment, even when based on experience and knowledge, as bad or wrong is simply stupid, in my opinion.

My practice as a humanist is to promote universal human rights in any way I can. I see this as a process that occurs with one situation or relationship at a time. I think the political advocacy of specific special-interest groups in the American political system is currently an anachronistic method to achieve universal human rights. I feel the process is in itself divisive. I would prefer to see all groups who feel disenfranchised joined in a universal human rights coalition, which could approach government and demand comprehensive legislation on human rights for everyone in society.

Proposition 8

The narrow success of Proposition 8 in California must be a great blow to those LGBT people who look to the heterosexual culture for approval. It is also a blow to those LGBT people who expect normal civil rights. It is a hostile denial of those human rights by heterosexuals who still need to think they are superior to someone....anyone. The large support for Proposition 8 in the African-American and Latino-American communities of Southern California has been seen by some analysts as the tipping point for the success of the proposition. The timing is so unfortunate, when many LGBT people enthusiastically helped elect Barack Obama president.

While individuals cannot change the disappointing outcome of such a test of humanity in the polls, individual LGBT people and those who support them can adopt a practice of unwavering out-ness and unwavering vocal support for LGBT civil rights. This is the best way to educate those insecure people who are ignorant of the common humanity they share with LGBT people. They may eventually be taught that denying the humanity of any human being lessens their own humanity.

Meanwhile, I encourage my LGBT brothers and sisters to live in strengthened solidarity and community. We need to stop allowing this wedge issue of heterosexual approval to wedge us apart. We need to be aware of each other in the public space. We need to acknowledge each other and be open to each other in the public space. By showing those frightened by us that we are among them and are social human beings, we can also educate. Wear a gay button on your jacket. Wear a rainbow. Put your arm on your friend's or partner's or spouse's shoulder. Smile at other LGBT people when you see them. Just smile. Let us make the world as friendly as we can for each other. It's the least we can do while we wait for the world to join us in our happiness with who we are.

Prejudice

There is a lot of talk, just talk, about racism in the US media this week after Barach Obama defended his religious friend and advisor, Jeremiah Wright.

Prejudice and bigotry based on race, ethnicity and religion imply ignorance on the part of the prejudiced. Prejudice and bigotry lead to mindless and routine discriminatory behavior based solely on visual criteria. Actually, bigotry based on economic class is rampant in the US and nobody wants to discuss that at all.

Discrimination is another matter. Discrimination as thought is human and intelligent. Without discrimination in each moment of our lives, we become stupid victims of naivete and stupidity. This is the tragedy of rote political correctness.

Careful observation and investigation of the realities of racial subgroups and ethnic cultural groups is called science. Sociology, behavioral psychology and anthropology are examples. To walk into certain neighborhoods or group-specific settings, whether they are black, brown or white, would be simply idiotic for anyone who did not take time to research and understand the dynamics of those areas. Therefore, there is a need for looking at people in specific group contexts as a matter of self preservation.

Barach Obama shows the consciousness of someone who has struggled with these issues his whole life. As a gay man, I have also struggled with these issues my whole adult life. I have had no choice as an intelligent human being. I have tried to behave in a way open to individuals, despite their color or ethnic markers. Rarely, I find individuals who are capable of stepping out of their assumed markers of identity to meet me half way to mutual understanding.

Practice is hard. It is not for the stupid, the enraged or the cowardly.

Terrorism

Yes, let's wage a war against terror.

Let us wage war against those who teach their children homophobia, sexism, selfishness, materialism, violence, elitism, brutality and hatred, whether they be Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Mormon, atheist or Muslim.

Let us wage a war against those who greedily accumulate wealth from sweat, fear and trepidation of those who actually do the world's labor in the Americas, in Europe, in Asia, or in Africa.

Let us wage war against those who poison our air, our food, our water with irresponsible child-rearing, huge cars, fast food, sewage, and toxins.

In other words, let us wage war against our own human laziness and fear of change. Let each of us become a practicing warrior against materialism, jealousy, indolence, greed, stupidity, gluttony, addiction, prejudice, rudeness, hypocrisy, mindless reproduction and indifference. Let each of us practice looking toward the light of right thought and right living. This practice colors everything with new light. There is no shadow in this practice where terrorism can breed.