Happy Hanukkah!
As a 46-y-o bisexual man who grew up Jewish and then in the '80s studied
yoga and Eastern religion with an Indian master and lived for ten years in
various meditation ashrams around the USA – I now consider myself a HINJU
– I have always felt like a second-class citizen. When you live in a
government-sanctioned Christian culture – even though I myself have had
brief visions of Jesus in meditation – you are always marginalized. When
Christian religious zealots refer to the “moral values that our country is
founded on,” they shame all other religious thought and belief other than
a singular WASP pseudoreligious snobbery.
The culture sanctioned by the government affirms only some fo its
citizens. Imagine if Hindus could exploit Krishna's birthday just as Xians
do for Xmas!
There is a defensiveness about American Christian moralism that manifests,
I believe, as virulent anti-intellectual sentiment in this country and
rampant xenophobia.
Being Jewish is like being a Democrat – no, worse, it's like being a third-party candidate. Ya get no real respect for having beliefs separate from the mainstream.
