Email to a "minister":

Isn't it fortunate that our country included freedom of speech and religion in the constitution?  It means even the most ignorant and stupid people can voice their opinions on whatever topic they wish.  It's also fortunately that we have risen out of the dark ages and most of us have benefited from education which make it possible for those of us who are intelligent and humane can recognize these various spewings of stupidity, ignorance, intolerance, superstition and righteous idiocy and ignore them.  Sometimes, however, those of us who, through our personal relationship with the Creator, have learned to utilize the intellect and higher emotions with which the Creator has endowed us, find it necessary to make the attempt to assist those who have not; those who live in ignorant darkness, mentally and emotionally, to move into a closer relationship with the Creator and Creation.

I have just read of your opinion of and directive to single mothers.  Clearly, in your heart and mind, you have imagined a God that has stagnated in Judeo-Christian historical interpretation.  The Creator and Creation is ever present and ever evolving.  Whatever your personal relationship with the Creator; I have my own.  Whatever directives you believe come from your relationship with the Creator, it is astoundingly self-righteous and arrogant to believe that the Creator would have identical directives to anyone else and that you have been designated to be the spokesman for the Creator.

I'm a single mother, 65, my son is 36, I have a granddaughter.  Fortunately, I never heard of you until today but it wouldn't have mattered because I made my decision about being a single mother very quickly after learning of my pregnancy and that, "sir", is between me and the Creator and nothing that you should be presuming to be interfering with for me or anyone else. Every time someone presumes to tell someone else what the Creator expects from them, they are, in fact, interfering with the personal relationship between that person and the Creator.  We can assist in sharing all the options that we're aware of, but, in the end, it is imperative that each of us make the choices that are presented to us and learn and experience the consequences, in order to find the path the Creator has set for us.  While often difficult, it is through compassionate acceptance that we can best be helpful to others; not by presuming to know or interfere with the path that they are traveling.

You are just a man.  You would do well to learn, with humility, that that is what you are and that what is decided between others and the Creator is none of your concern.  You would do well to learn that women are the bearers of life and that men are meant to be the protectors of women and children, whatever their circumstances.

Forgive my own presumption in thinking my words will make any difference. I pray for your deliverance from your attachment to a historic interpretation of the Creator's "rules" and a movement into the light and a more immediate relationship with the Creator and with Creation which will bring you joy and acceptance and compassion and fill your heart with love and greater humanity. 

For Everyone:  I would like to reiterate that I believe that each and every individual has the opportunity to have a personal relationship with the Creator and with Creation and that anyone who presumes to know about, to speak of or to act in any way toward someone else's decisions and choices in that relationship is, in fact, interfering with that relationship and with the path that individual is on.