The argument against gay marriage I hear most often is that our country was founded on Christian principles. The founders, so the argument goes, were religious men who, with pen in hand, inscribed their pious beliefs upon the pages of our Constitution.

This argument is entirely inaccurate.

Though they may have believed in God, they knew the perils of combining organized religion and government. And for that reason they deliberately worked to separate church and state. In that vein, the uprising around Proposition 8 is justified. Let’s argue against tax breaks for churches. Let’s argue for limiting their ability to influence legislation. And if we want to remove marriage as a legal entity, to strip the very word from our laws because it is a religious, not legal, institution, let’s come together and argue for that.

But if what we are arguing for is the right to marry, as ordained by law, this uprising is misguided from the start. We cannot, from the left sides of our mouths, support one constitutional staple (personal liberty) while from the right violate another (separation of church and state). The issue here is not marriage, but the organized religious infiltration of our government. If we want proof of the devastating side effects of the coupling of organized religion and politics, look no further than the current Republican Party. Once champions of liberty and freedom–a party that ended slavery and fought to give women the right to vote–, they are now a castrated political entity. Their mouths may move but the words that come out are seldom their own.

Organized religion and liberty are mutually exclusive. The sentiment of the organized religions is that it’s OK to believe what you want as long as it’s what they want you to believe. Liberty is as they define it. And that, not two men or women spending their lives together, is a complete betrayal of what we stand for. That is a plague that will systematically destroy what we care most about.

If we’re going to fight, let’s attack the root of the problem. The biggest issue we face today, the number one problem preventing progress, is the power that religious organizations wield over this country and its government. They have hampered the progress of science, education, and civil rights for too long. Their beliefs last only as long as the ignorance they are based upon. Liberty endures. And a country based on liberty will endure, as well.

So if this debate is to be about reason over dogma, about prying our country out of the crushing jaws of organized religion, and about fighting for the rights of not just gays but all people who want to be free to make up their minds about what’s right for them, it’s one worth waging.

With this post comes my official entrance into cookoo-ville. (I say that half seriously.) Last night, a friend of mine recommended I watch Zeitgeist: The Movie. I knew about the general concept of Zeitgeist, but had no idea what the film would be like. The entire movie is online, so you can stream it directly from the site.

If you suspend reality and disbelief, the contents are shocking. The best part is, this movie was made earlier this year and it shines juxtaposed with our current financial crises. It’s worth taking a look, even if you don’t buy all of the theories proposed, if only for the compelling explanation of Christianity as a scion of paganism.

The Wall Street bailout brouhaha has clogged the pages of newspapers and news sites for the last week. Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke–backed by the Bush Administration–have tried their hardest to hastily push a fix through legislation. The full text of the draft proposal can be found here.

Nested within this at first seemingly innocuous proposal lies a little gem that uncovers exactly why Paulson & Co. have been holding the brink-of-catastrophe gun to congress’s head, hoping for a hasty approval. Section 8 reads in its entirety:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Or, to put it simply, Paulson can do whatever he wants with our $700 billion without telling anyone. Paulson’s feeble attempt at explaining the lack of oversight details in the memo were nothing more than a visceral reaction to being caught in an attempt to go elbow-deep in this country’s fiscal cookie jar.

I thought it would be presumptuous for us in that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of congress. That’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight, I believe we need oversight. We need oversight. We need protection. We need transparency.

He must believe the American people are a dumb bunch. Section 8 of his proposal didn’t delegate the authority to establish an oversight plan to congress, it strictly forbade any oversight at all! This wasn’t a mistake; he’s not an idiot. You don’t become the CEO of Goldman Sachs and the United States Treasury Secretary by lacking intelligence.

He is a liar. And once again, in a time of national crisis, the trust that Americans unscrupulously place in our leaders is being exploited.

Update 2:08pm: Perhaps it’s my legislative naivete, but after reading the entire proposal, I find the vague language striking. For instance, Section 12 Clause (1) leaves the door wide-open for the bailout of any member of the financial industry affected by the mortgage crisis. And Section 6 qualifies the spending limit for this bailout to the point where many interpretations are possible, implying $7 billion may not be the cap (a point bolstered by the fact that the requested increase to our current national debt limit in Section 10 is about $700 billion more than the amount requested for the bailout).

Most alarming of all, the bill seems set up to allow unfettered authority on the part of the Treasury Secretary; not only to apply the rules laid out but to interpret and expand them. I recognize that some of these clauses are necessarily vague because the specifics regarding what is necessary to fix the situation are unknown. However, this is an extraordinary amount of power to invest in a single person especially considering that the unilateralism of financial industry bosses played a big part in why we’re in this situation to begin with.

It happens to the best of us; I myself have survived one or two and I know others who have experienced just as many. There is no mistaking the event or its profound impact. It’s a mind and often life-altering experience that I’m thankful rarely occurs. But when it does, it demands one’s attention and singular focus. And when it leaves, one is never quite the same.

The United States and the American people are experiencing an identity crisis right now. The closeness of such a heated and important political race demonstrates just how torn we are. If my personal struggle during this election indicates at all that of the greater population, what we have before us is indeed a defining choice. The People are sick of a polarized country; sick of being placed in red and blue boxes; and sick of the need to divide our beliefs along party lines when many of us have a leg on each side.

I find the two-party system–or, more accurately, its current manifestation–inadequate for a 21st century America. Why can’t I believe in economic conservativeness and social progression at the same time and be represented in national government? To be fair, the Democratic candidate for President shares these beliefs, though the Republicans will do anything to convince the voters otherwise–read Senator Obama’s economic plan and tell me he doesn’t want our country’s mind broadened and its purse strings drawn tighter. But I digress and at the same time fan the flame…

This election should be about not what divides us, but the inspiration and determination of the American people as a whole; about perseverance and the American will; and, more importantly, about reclaiming our American identity. Perhaps it’s blind optimism that compels me to believe that we can and will do better–especially considering our recent elective choices that seem to betray that confidence–but I believe it nonetheless.

This is America! We fought a revolution and won, defying all odds and forcing back the most powerful empire in the world. We instituted a government unfathomed at the time, endowing us, the People, with the power to choose our fate. We need to stand up and compromise with each other. We need to meet at the table, discuss our differences, and bend to shake in the middle. Empires rise and fall; and, though we find ourselves in troubled times, believing we are a nation beyond the tendrils of history will bring about our biggest downfall yet.

America is synonymous with progression. Indeed, our inception was based on altering the status quo to guarantee more personal liberty, a better life, and more opportunities for happiness than ever before. Our foundation is progress and our choices to promote it have been heralded and emulated by countries around the world. We cannot inspire via stagnation; we must continue to progress and break down provincial barriers and live up to the promise of our founding.

The world wishes, nay lusts after, our success; do we, the People, want it too?

Today’s news was a twist. I didn’t expect to wake up first thing this morning and learn about the surprise VP pick from John McCain. An unknown governor from Alaska thrust into the national spotlight as the finishing touch on the presumptive Republican nominee’s ticket.

At first I laughed, deriding McCain for such obvious pandering; but my reaction has changed the more I’ve learned about Governor Palin. She’s, astonishingly enough, an average and brilliant American who’s steered her way through local politics to the national stage on a solid platform that she’s ingenuously adhered to. (All while a member of the Republican party.)

I like her as a person, appreciate her convictions and believe she’s gotten to where she is today by knowing herself. And I respect the effort it takes to lead that sort of life. But she has some cornerstone convictions that I don’t share. I don’t agree with her stances on gay marriage and abortion. She also isn’t equipped to be the President. And with John McCain – the man the phrase “a heartbeat away” was coined for – the capability for the Vice President to assume power from the Commander-in-Chief is paramount.

However, she is quite adherent to the constitutionality of legislation (it’s unnerving that that qualification is necessary nowadays) even when it doesn’t fall in line with her beliefs. She’s tough on ethics and, judging by her history, is a tenacious person who goes after what she wants.

At the end of the day, her introduction into this election was a game changer. Obama and McCain have now essentially canceled out their main character flaws (inexperience and anachronism) with their Vice Presidential picks and, in doing so, are now freed up to debate the issues.

Both campaigns made holistically wise decisions about their candidate’s running mate and this is gearing up to be an exciting election. I hope Obama and McCain seize this opportunity and give the American people something we haven’t seen for a while: A genuine competition between two parties to sell their best solutions to our and the world’s problems. We are living through a truly historic time right now. This election is pivotal.

The media, lately, has been obsessed with the definition of patriotism. Confining it to the wearing of a flag pin or having previously been a prisoner of war is too prescriptive. Patriotism is not defined by a single action, but a conglomeration of actions that form a cause and define a lifetime.

Both Obama and McCain are patriots. There’s not doubt about it. They’ve simply chosen to reflect their patriotism in different ways. From the moment we begin to learn and figure things out for ourselves, those around us encourage creativity and enforce the idea that there’s no one, single way to achieve something. The methods of achievement may vary in their effectiveness, but there are, without a doubt, many possible combinations that result in the same outcome.

And that’s the point we’ve reached regarding patriotism. Yet, as we’ve become adults, we forget that differences are uniting; we forget our childhood lessons that encouraged exploration and personal redefinition. If not for this driving characteristic, Einstein would never have discovered the influence of gravity on light and would not have correctly overturned thousands of years of physical history and commonly held beliefs. It’s this daring redefinition, the exploration of a space thought well understood, that resulted in arguably the greatest rediscovery of our time.

The idea that either candidate’s personal definition of patriotism is right or wrong goes against this very characteristic. Each person has the right to define patriotism in the context of their own strengths and weaknesses. That right is inalienable. It was provided by the founders via the constitution because they recognized that staying ahead means constantly rethinking the present situation in many different ways.

Ultimately, it is up to the American people to decide which manifestation of patriotism appeals to them the most. That’s the beauty of our democracy: win or lose, you have a right to voice your opinion. But the media has been using their power to influence people’s opinions on these issues. They have the great responsibility of oversight, of informing the American people of the facts. They were designed to be a medium for information. Unfortunately, they’ve lost sight of that goal. In the face of capitalism, where revenue and profits are driven by subscribers and viewers who are, in turn, interested in nothing but being stimulated, they’ve catered their reporting to ideals and extremes, often ignoring the facts.

Whose fault is it, then? Do we blame the citizens of America for their general sense of apathy towards politics and civics? Or do we blame the media for feeding the people misinformation because it’s titilating? Or maybe we don’t blame anyone at all and instead focus on new, disrupting technologies that are, once again, democratizing information and knowledge: namely, the Internet. Its impact was already been seen in 16-month Democratic primary and continues to be the foundation on which the Obama campaign builds all of its efforts.

Patriotism, to me, is constantly exploring how to make this country better. There are both micro and macro representations of this. A steel worker putting in extra hours to make more money is being a patriot by giving more to corporate America and giving more money back into the economy. A teacher is being a patriot by choosing to show up every day to educate the children of this country in the hope that they will be the next Albert Einstein or Bill Gates.

Instead of calling out the differences in the presidential candidate’s versions of patriotism, the media would best serve the country by positively pointing out the fact that both are patriotic in different ways. By encouraging us to be unique, to embrace our own ideals and preferences and to use those to keep America on the cutting edge of science and technology, human rights, philanthropy, business and education. America needs a lot of fuel, our thoughts and energy, to keep going. Patriotism is using your thoughts and energy, in an infinite number of creative and different ways, for this very purpose.