Salient…July 30th, 2018

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(3750)

There are matters that are too important to ignore or leave to chance. These are salient moments.

Anita Bryant.

I would guess, to my average reader, the name neither rings a bell nor stimulates any particular memory.

But back in 1977 (when a few determined dinosaurs still roamed the Earth), Anita Bryant was voted “The Most Trusted Woman in America.”

She was a former Miss America contestant who had a singing career and was well-known as the pitch person for Florida orange juice.

She was vibrant.

She was youthful.

And she was, as we gradually discovered, quite political.

For you see, when the Fort Lauderdale City Council passed an ordinance removing all limitations on lodging and civil considerations for the homosexual community, Anita objected.

And we’re not talking about an op-ed letter to the newspaper. She hit the streets, held rallies, and turned a local situation into a national debate over the issue of whether people who pursued a homosexual lifestyle should be granted all of their civil liberties.

She was in demand. Her performances were packed. She did interviews on all the Christian talk shows, and even one for Playboy Magazine. She was America’s sweetheart.

For you see, at that time in our country, the jury was not only out on the gay community, but was leaning toward the “rejection penalty.”

It was popular to be anti-gay.

It was considered patriotic to be against them.

As we arrived in the 1980s, and the horrific AIDS epidemic spread across the land, those who believed homosexuality to be an abomination to God also whispered that perhaps this new virus was the Almighty’s punishment.

Things changed.

Suddenly a little boy in Indiana got AIDS from a blood transfusion–and it was no longer merely an infection of the flaming queens. Ryan White, with his generous spirit, refused to believe that his particular AIDS was any different from the AIDS contracted by those in San Francisco.

He was humble, he was non-judgmental, and he was strong until the day he died.

He made those who condemned their brothers and sisters look foolish–especially Anita Bryant.

She is still alive, but unfortunately, her name is equated with intolerance instead of righteousness–or orange juice, for that matter.

An interesting fact that you may want to tuck away in your memory: lepers are remembered more favorably than Pharisees.

So here is your salient moment:

You can’t defend God or morality by attacking behavior and hurting people.

 

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Dear Man/Dear Woman: A Noteworthy Conversation … October 8th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Woman: November, 1976. Forty years ago.

 

Man: That’s before you and I were born.

 

Woman: I know, but they do have history books. You might want to check one out sometime.

 

Man: Why? It’s just a bunch of older people doing the same dumb things we do with less cool clothes.

 

Woman: I assume you’re trying to be funny. Anyway, it was the November issue of Playboy Magazine in 1976, when Jimmy Carter, running for President, made a statement. Everybody was very upset that he did an interview with Playboy. But the admission he made rang out all across the country, reverberating with everything from respect to ridicule.

 

Man: Wait a second–I think I remember this. Something about his heart, and lust.

 

Woman: Yes. When he was asked if he had ever cheated on Rosalynn, he said no, but he had “lusted in his heart.”

 

Man: Where did he get that?

 

Woman: It’s something Jesus said. The quote is, “He that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery in his heart.”

 

Man: That sounds a little “prudey.”

 

Woman: That’s the way you might take it, but it’s not like that–especially with what’s happened in the last 24 hours, with Donald Trump’s comments about women.

 

Man: Absolutely ugly and distasteful.

 

Woman: That’s not what I’m talking about. The real problem is that equality between the sexes cannot be achieved as long as men see a woman and think “lust” and women are grateful for that, or even proud to be show horses.

 

Man: But there has to be an attraction between the sexes.

 

Woman: Yes, but a man can’t look on a woman just to lust after her and think we’re going to progress the race. It is a setup for inconsideration, abuse, violence, rape and even murder.

 

Man: I see. Because if his intentions are rejected, then he feels that she’s failed to fulfill her part of the bargain by being available.

 

Woman: Exactly. So you see, the problem is not what Donald Trump says, but the way we try to isolate it off and pretend he’s the only one who feels this way, by insisting that men have only one thing on their minds.

 

Man: And therefore, women have one thing on their minds–to try to fulfill that mental image of “sexy” so as to gain importance and worth.

 

Woman: So the key here is, how can we look on each other as people, knowing that in the process, every once in a while some passion and lust will rise up, but it will be based on a mutual understanding.

 

Man: It’s funny–most people would listen to what Jesus said and think he was a tight-assed religionist. But really, he was a humanist trying to get the male and female to honor one another without demanding the initiation of physical intimacy.

 

Woman: You hit it right on the head. So my prayer is that through this discussion about Donald Trump, we’ll get to the real root cause of inequality.

 

Man: Let me guess–until men know that the greatest way to welcome a woman is to include her emotionally, spiritually and mentally, we will continue to have flagrant outbursts from jerks who misuse women to prove their virility.

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G-Poppers … August 7th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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G-Pop is in the middle of a hard-boiled fussiness with a side order of grumble hash.

Listening to three well-known journalists, ranging from 45 to 60 years of age, he was astounded by the inordinate amount of time they spent discussing Lenny Kravitz’s penis.

For you see, apparently Mr. Kravitz split his leather pants, which made his private turf suddenly public domain. Rather than performing as investigative reporters, as they tout themselves to be, questioning whether this was a staged event–since how odd is it for someone to be handy with a camera trained on the crotch?–they instead spent a lengthy time postulating on the penis at hand.

G-Pop will not even discuss how inappropriate this might be for morning television. Instead, he poses the question: when is it important to notice that the train is speeding up as we’re heading directly toward the mountain?

Very often, G-Pop becomes frustrated because his children and grandchildren deem him a prude because of his stance on alcohol, marijuana and the absence of courtesy in human interaction.

G-Pop is not a prude. A prude is someone who looks at your life and says that you should not do that. G-Pop has a private conviction concerning vices which have gained voices.

For instance, you can call yourself a “social drinker” if you have a beer or cocktail when you’re out with friends. The minute you buy alcohol to put into our own home on a weekly basis, you are no longer socializing. You are materializing a habit.

Yet G-Pop is called a prude.

What G-Pop has are private convictions. A private conviction is when you say to yourself, “I’m not going to do that.”

This often leads to a practical mission. Is there a way we can do this better?

But the minute you question questionable actions, the fallback position of those who prefer habitual anarchy is to call you a prude.

• Or maybe they call you prejudiced.
• Or maybe they say you have a phobia.
• You most certainly are out of step.
• Or you are trying to curtail people’s freedom.

If Lenny split his pants and it was an accident, we shouldn’t be sitting around discussing his penis or how it was adorned. If he planned it, and wanted us to go on and on about his penis, then we should seriously wonder why this artist feels that his music is not strong enough to gain the interest of the market and that instead, he needs to offer additional allurements.

And when G-Pop sees a group of older men who should have the gravitas to offer a more intelligent perspective suddenly turn into gossiping ninnies and giggling schoolboys who just discovered their first Playboy Magazine, he is astounded and fearful that we’ve lost all sense of balance.

G-Pop is not a prude. He’s not trying to tell people they shouldn’t do things.

G-Pop just believes that privately, he chooses to avoid that path …and that the human race can do better things with its time than leering at a celebrity’s penis.

 

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