Malala Lives

By Peter Molenaar

Is it possible that the spirit of a fourteen-year-old Pakistani girl has touched all of us?  Malala Yousafzai faced down death for her cause.  Eventually, a Taliban bullet did crease her skull and traverse her face.  At the time, even this “non-believer” closed his eyes and bowed his head.

“Stop burning down our schools, let us learn, we are human beings”, say the teenaged girls who now defiantly conduct their vigils.  They stand openly against Taliban law and its violent enforcement. “Silence is no longer an option”, they tell us.

Constitutional reminder (USA):

“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”¦”.  ”˜Separation of church and state”˜ is derived from this clause.

Meanwhile the local archbishop appears as a leading opponent of same-sex marriage.

We respond – do keep your own flock in order as pleases you, sir.  However, there are numerous religious groups around the world which practice same-sex marriage.  To name a few, these would be Quakers, Episcopalians, Reform Jews, Unitarian-Universalists, and Native Americans with a two-spirit tradition.  Clearly, those who uphold the “Marriage Amendment” would suppress religious freedom indefinitely.

But truthfully, there is a deeper aspect.  If institutional discrimination is perpetuated, how many more young spirits would then be crushed beneath the bully culture? … Read the rest “Malala Lives”