I don’t understand why these congregations of clergymen and their flocks of ardent followers are not confronting the human monsters in remote villages of Cambodia, Thailand and India, doing everything in their power to rescue children from the multi-million dollar sexual slave trade?  Tell me why they mustered up the concerted energy to prevent passage of a simple legislative bill, but they will not address the immoral behavior of American family courts who award custodial parental rights to unfit mothers whose only semblance of motherhood is a brief stay in a hospital birthing room.

What will it take for self-righteous clerics to join forces, to rise up, fight, and speak against, the immorality of evil permeating every neighborhood, every city, and every country in this pitiful world of ours?  My God, one would expect intelligent, peace-loving leaders to know better, to understand that people in our country cherish the right to embrace whomever they choose without some bully government or clergyman bashing in their spirit in the name of the holy sanctity of their definition of what marriage is supposed to be.

We all know that scores of heterosexual couples find in divorce, freedom from abusive or unfaithful partners.  Men and women escape in droves from the humdrum life of 30-minute suppers, hectic days at the office, and evenings filled with piles of dirty laundry, sibling rivalry and disappointing hours in front of blaring television sets.  Perhaps others solve their own personal crises through extra-marital affairs which so often lead to vicious child custody battles and the ultimate dissolution of their blessed marriages, no matter if they practice Catholicism, Judaism or Islam.  Evangelical or not, they should proclaim their moral standards on their own bedroom walls, not on the front doors of those who may love differently, and perhaps less conditionally, than they do.

Some couples dissolve their hallowed unions at the drop of a hat, with no apparent moral conflict and with little regard for the children who suffer in the selfishness of parents who want nothing but to feed an insatiable desire for more cake than they actually deserve to eat.  Certainly, my own traditional, intact marriage will not suffer if the women down the street join hands in civil matrimony.   They already set an example of exemplary relationships that enhances, not hinders, familial cohesiveness and a gentle love of those who may behave a bit differently than most of us, in the privacy of their homes.

Society must eradicate the physical and sexual abuse of its most vulnerable citizens before it attempts to hinder the freedom of a harmless faction of our population.  Let all decent Americans, as tainted and imperfect as we are, consider the damage already done by the immoral and evil perpetrators of crimes against humankind’s children.  Then let society come to its moral senses and imagine, as our beloved John Lennon dreamed, all the people living life in peace.

Life is full of humor and comedic antics, and like most humans, finding that humor in our daily lives brings great respite from an otherwise stressful existence.  My friends, Svetlana and Miroslav, have allowed me to find such relief, at their expense, in the voting process of these divisively united states.  As newly confirmed American citizens, they take great pride in this privilege of deciding who will lead us and which laws will guide our lives.  Yet, after all the seriousness of their induction ceremony that I proudly witnessed at Faneuil Hall in 2003, their first election encompassed our very own dog kennel noise issue.  After decades of Tito’s rule, then years of bombs and chaos and all the things that war eliminates from ordinary life - necessities like stability, electricity, food and joy -my friends mustered up the courage to immigrate to a faraway, unknown land.  This land promised them a chance at the dreams and the very first ballot they cast was meant to eliminate or perpetuate a bunch of noisy dogs.  As a true American who respects the secrecy of that booth, I never asked them how they voted.  But knowing them as well as I do, I have an idea of what their decisions were on that rainy April day.

In former Yugoslavia, where Communism and then radical Islam affected their daily lives for many years, they embarked upon a journey to the United States of America where their opinions would be heard, their dreams fulfilled, and their sense of wanderlust profoundly impacted by the autonomy allowed by our free society.  Svetlana and Miroslav could now impose their democratic views in the voting booth, thereby relinquishing the repression of a communist upbringing.  And this is what America is all about, is it not?  This is what it means to be created equal and to enjoy the fruits of one’s own labor.  An American voting booth – that coveted place of a free and democratic society – so often devoid of the majority of people eligible to make their voices heard.