Don't let the lovely pictures fool you.  I had to temper my mood with nice images.

NOT A RANT… MORE OF A CRY OF ALARM that runs the risk of becoming rant…  I’ll try to tamp down my gut response and keep it to myself… ISIS, ISIL, AL-QAEDA, UNITED METHODISTS, SOUTHERN BAPTISTS, MORMONS, CATHOLICS share some unsettling beliefs rooted in a common heritage.

Many commonly held religious ideas and traditions in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam come from the same collection of myths created long before what in Western cultures we call the Common Era…BCE.  It’s not surprising that the leaders of ISIS hold many notions about God, about relationships (God with humans and humans with God) and about human sexuality,  which are held by supreme leaders of mainline Islamist groups and by Orthodox Jews and by leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and by many leaders of Christian denominations which might be labeled “fundamentalist.”  The San Francisco Archbishop, Salvatore J. Cordileone, has made clear in a handbook he is imposing on teachers and other employees of Catholic schools in the archdiocese that he believes civil laws should be brought in line with Catholic doctrine.  In his handbook he declares that  “fundamental demands of justice require that the civil law preserve…,” and he goes on to name the practices which should be restricted by civil law. It’s the Christian version of sharia law. 

The L.A. Times report:  “Cordileone has prompted fresh outrage in the liberal Bay Area by imposing morality clauses on teachers, staff and administrators at the four high schools under his control in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties.  A newly released handbook asks the nearly 500 school employees to ‘affirm and believe’ that “adultery, masturbation, fornication, and the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations’ are ‘gravely evil.’ Artificial-reproductive technology, contraception and abortion are described similarly.  ‘The fundamental demands of justice,’ it continues, ‘require that the civil law preserve the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.’