how do i love thee...

Now, this should really be very simple. A man in Rhode Island, whose husband recently died, wants a memorial marker placed on his marker that tells the world that he loved someone.

"I just want this to be recognized," Paolino told WJAR in Providence. "In two or three hundred years when that name is there, I want someone to know that this person loved this person."

The cemetery, St. Anne's in Cranston, Rhode Island, refused to allow it because of the Catholic church's beliefs on gays. What a bunch of horsepatootie. You can't even be dead without someone telling you what to do based on their mythological beliefs.

I was raised in the RC church. My mother was what most people would call "devout." She wasn't unrealistic though. One night at dinner a story came on the news [my father had this thing about watching the news during dinner.] about a lesbian couple being discriminated against in housing because of being lesbian. My mother's comment was pure and simple: "It's nobody's business who sleeps with who." My father, who was not RC, and I turned to her in unison and shock! We never really expected that out of her mouth.

My mother was always very accepting of people. She didn't like my being gay, but she accepted it quietly and with dignity. She supported me 150% at all times. When Ron died, she and my father were there for me. My father even came to the funeral, which was unheard of for my father!

I left the RC many years ago. The final straw for me had nothing to do with gayness. It had to do with money. I was fed up with the hypocrisy of the church always crying poor when it is richer than Queen Elizabeth and Bill Gates put together. If they were serious about following the words of Jesus they would pay heed to this verse: "Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." Matthew 19:21.

It is their mythology not mine. Yet, they do not follow the teachings of the man they say is god.

love thy neighbor as thyself? horsepatootie

"love thy neighbor as I say" is more like it...