Harry Forsdick
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Separation of Church and State in Same-Sex Marriage

5/14/2012

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I am a huge supporter of same sex marriage and attend a Church in Boston (Church of the Covenant) that has been a leader in the movement for treating all people the same when it comes to their rights within our church.

I'm beginning to see more incorrect articles talking about Churches being forced to marry same sex couples.  This is incorrect. Even with the changes in laws in the several states that now support same sex marriage, no church has ever been forced to marry a couple if that act is against their set of beliefs.  

There is a separate set of discussions going on entirely within the Churches themselves, about same sex marriage.  In some churches, weddings are celebrated regardless of gender of the couple.  In others, it is very unlikely that same sex marriages will ever be held.

The point is that there is a difference between the religious act of marriage and the civil legal act of marriage.  The first involves a faith-based interpretation of a couple's commitment to each other, the second involves the state's legal-based interpretation of the same.  

In fact in Massachusetts (I don't know how this works in other states) when we got married 35 years ago, the minister and rabbi who married us (that's another story) said at the end of our ceremony "Therefore, by the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you ..."  In that one sentence, the two ceremonies (religious and civil) were linked.  But there is nothing that forces a religious organization to say those words if they do not believe them.


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Finding a Treasure

7/5/2011

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A search of vaults at the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple found a vast collection of gold coins, jewels and precious stones worth an estimated $22 billion.  (http://nyti.ms/n1Eoso)


Makes the Walter Mitty in me sit back and wonder what it must feel like to be able to forget about such a fortune.   How does this happen?  It is because it was gathered from poor people by the smarter leaders of the temple who went to the grave knowing this existed?  

One of our visits on our recent trip was to the Steamboat Arabia in Kansas City MO, a Steamboat supply ship that sank in 1856 in the Missouri River.  An almost intact cargo discovered when the ship was unearthed 1988 gave a unique view of what was needed to help settlers from the east populate the prairie-- the types of household goods, farm implements, clothes, guns, etc. that a steamship would carry to the then edge of USA "civilization".

In any case, for me, treasure hunting has always been a fascinating topic to think about.

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Attracted to the Underdog: The Google + Project

7/1/2011

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Why am I always attracted to root for the underdog?  In sports, I certainly love seeing an upset.  In business I am attracted to the new guy with he hope that he corrects the mistakes of the established organization as well as deflates the arrogance of the dominant player.

I have looked briefly at Google's own help and demo presentations about Google + (catchy name: a one character punctuation symbol.  Google seems to have looked at the essential aspects of Facebook and taken the most important concepts (friends) and gone to the next level with what you want to do with friends (have conversations, find information (Google hasn't forgotten its claim to fame) share some information, have live video conversations, share pictures easily) as well as the most difficult aspects of Facebook (e.g., putting boundaries around groups of friends)

Over the next several days, I will post my reactions to various features of Google + as I learn about them.

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Whitey, Bernie: Why is it that true crime fascinates us?

6/29/2011

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There's a little bit of Walter Mitty in all of us.  Our imaginations are drawn to all sorts of fantastical thoughts, some of which we probably don't want to share in public.

What would it be like to be on the lam for 16 years?  How would you feel if you were bilking your closest friends -- and their closest friends for all of their life savings?  Wouldn't you just once like to push someone around and get your own way even if it wasn't just?  How do you stop a crime that you have to keep committing so that you aren't caught?

Believe me:  I have no sympathy for either of these criminals, but I admit that I find thinking about their lives interesting.  Not particularly proud of that,  I'm not alone.

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    Family:
       Marsha, Ben & Will
    Work: BBN, Infomation Publishing, CMGI, Genuity, Level 3 Communications, Lexington Historical Society, LexMedia, Lexington Digital, Minuteman Digital, Lexington Photo Scanning

    Education: Yale, MIT

    Towns: Lexington MA, Cummington MA, Garden City NY

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    email: [email protected]
    blog: forsdick.weebly.com
    web: forsdick.com
    phone: 781-861-6149
    cell: 781-799-6002
    home: 46 Burlington St.
               Lexington, MA

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