Hypocrites and Perverts

-by Bill Watkins 5/19/2017

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
—Proverbs 5:18

The Anthony Weiner case reminded me of a great American tradition: Hypocrisy.

That and our built-in age discrimination.

How many times does the Constitution hoist “age” as a qualification for office?

Three.  One must be twenty-five to run for Congress.  Thirty to run for the Senate.  And thirty-five to run for the presidency.

And one must be eighteen to be considered worthy of a vote in our process and many other rights of so-called “adults.”

That is discrimination.

Google defines discrimination as:  the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

Google defines prejudice as: a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

A forty-year old man swerves to the voting booth, drunk and jaded.

“It’s okay, he’s the right age.”

A twelve year old has studied every candidate, has a favorite, knows the issues, wants to help…  But:

“I’m sorry, you are not the right age.”

***

There is a similar problem, the real “puritan” one that got me writing today:

Anthony Weiner.  A fifteen year old.  Distributing pornographic material.

That’s a puritan-style “offense” if I ever heard one.  I think that girl will survive.

In fact, that girl may have been a woman.  Not by law, but by nature.

Many want to throw stones at Anthony Weiner, and I say with that rebellious rabbi, that “he without sin may cast the first stone.”

We coddle our children out of their rights.

A woman is a woman, when she has working reproductive parts.

A man is a man, when he can produce a child.

That is the pagan view, the first people view, the pre-religion view, and I think it has more value and truth in it than puritanical laws that block love.

The devil wants to divide us.  “Call them terrorists!!  Call those perverts!!  Call those ones adults!!  Call those guys children!!”

The devil hates simplicity: Love defeating hate.  Good defeating evil.

Forgiveness, hope, sexual intercourse by consenting people.  A disaster for the devil, who wants us to fear and judge others.

Love is good, folks.  No matter the age.

Forgiveness is the best part of us.  So perhaps we can love each other.  Start with Anthony.  Or his supposed victim—actually a discriminated against young person!!

Freedom is spouted as a virtue by those who wrote the laws that make themselves free, while others suffer as their servants.

Free our children.

Free them to vote.  To have sex.  To speak.  To dance.  To sing!!!

Let’s come back, not to the religious God only…

But to the place with less words.  The rite of passage ceremony.  The recognition that we are men and women long before current laws deem us as such.