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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (121030)	6/20/2005 3:10:13 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793725

Huh. Well, I don't shop at Ikea, but this just seems unnecessarily snarky to me - but it's in the Magazine section, not the news section, and it's probably fair game to run sappy and snarky stuff in the Magazine: >>You could make an argument that the center of the opposition to gay marriage is not in Washington but 40 miles away, in a ranch house in Catonsville, Md., a suburb of Baltimore. Laura and Dave Clark live there with their four children. The house is tucked cozily into the back of a cul-de-sac in a 1970's housing development. Inside, it is wall-to-wall carpeting and hand-me-down furnishings. Snapshots of the kids cover the refrigerator door. The couple's wedding album is prominently displayed on a table in the living room. Dave works for the federal government. Laura home-schools the 7-year-old twins, Grace and Cole, while also looking after 5-year-old Kayla and 3-year-old Jacob. In mid-May, on one of the first really warm days of the year in the East, I sat on the screened-in back porch with the Clarks. The lawn we looked out on had plenty of room to play, but all four kids preferred to be on the porch, riding tricycles and training-wheeled bicycles in a tight circle around the adults, bashing into one another, performing for their parents and the visitor. Family trips, home-schooling, Bible school, gymnastics classes: the conversation was decidedly kid-centric. ''At the stage of life we're in, it's all about family,'' Dave said. It was because of Laura that I had first come to know the Clarks a couple of months earlier. She is 33 and was born and raised in the area. After high school she went to nearby Towson State to study accounting. She dropped out before getting her degree, but not before finding Christ through the college youth ministry. She met Dave at around that time, and they married when she was 20. Laura tends to wear a plain and determined expression, eyes heavy-lidded but face wide, giving an effect that could be bewilderment, outrage or concentration. The more time I spent with her, the more apparent it became that her quiet matter-of-factness is rooted in the deep satisfaction she says she feels in her roles as mother and housewife and in the clarity of her worldview. She describes herself as an introvert, and while she has long held a well of Christian convictions, she said, ''for most of my life, until about two years ago, I was wishy-washy, a people pleaser.'' Around that time, the pastor of her nondenominational evangelical church began a series of pulpit seminars, which had a profound impact on her. ''One was the Kingdom Assignment,'' she said. ''You volunteer to do it. The church gives each person who signs up $100 to invest. The challenge is to do something God-honoring with it. Then you come back and give a presentation in front of the church and tell people what you did and what you learned.'' Laura chose to buy copies of the Christian inspirational book ''Traveling Light for Mothers'' and give them to mothers she met. ''I never liked public speaking,'' she said, ''so the whole thing was a challenge for me.'' The other event was a series of sermons based on the best-selling Christian book ''The Purpose-Driven Life.'' ''It really helped me to clarify things,'' she said. ''I learned that God has a purpose for me. I used to see things as separate. But everything is connected: my life, my family, society. Before, I didn't want to rock the boat. Now I don't mind rocking the boat, as long as it's based on truth.'' << I would say, on the whole, it seems unnecessarily put-downish to me. But I think it's probably true that the anti-gay-marriage movement is driven by certain religious denominations that believe homosexuality is one of the worst evils. Or maybe it's just the evil du jour, I dunno. Abortion and feminism are tired, let's flog homosexuality.