Same-Sex Marriage, Obama, and Christian Justice

This past week was a milestone for same-sex marriage, both bad and good. On Tuesday, May 8th, voters in the state of North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment (called Amendment One) that bans same-sex marriage. Then yesterday, May 9th, the President of the United States announced that he endorses same-sex marriages. Among other things, the reasoning he gave was religious:

The thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the golden rule — you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated, and I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids, and that’s what motivates me as president.

A plethora of blogs and articles on both sides of the debate gave attention to these developments and I am sure more will come. As the debate (some would call it a battle) rages on, it is interesting that the conservatives, predictably, evoke the language of biblical authority. Some more nuanced conservatives, like Collin Hansen in “How to Win the Public on Homosexuality“, would point out that the issue isn’t merely homosexuality being a sin, but that it is idolatry, that is, fulfilling our desires inordinately is displeasing to God. Another conservative pastor, Kevin DeYoung, blogs “Five Reasons Christians Should Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage” to enumerate the reasons why Christians should continue to contend the legalization of gay marriage.

On the other side of the debate are Christians who evoke the language of love and peace. It may seem at first glance like a watered down argument of tolerance, but there are those who have very thoughtful, biblically legitimate positions on the issue. Jared Byas blogs “I Still Stand as an Evangelical for Gay Marriage” with some very compelling points to which the conservative side should at least give ear. Others who fall in this camp claim that the culture wars themselves are harmful to the Christian witness. Rachel Held Evans writes the very read-worthy blog entry “How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation” claiming the negative affects of politicizing the issue of homosexuality, she writes:

We are tired of fighting, tired of vain efforts to advance the Kingdom through politics and power, tired of drawing lines in the sand, tired of being known for what we are against, not what we are for.

And when it comes to homosexuality, we no longer think in the black-at-white categories of the generations before ours. We know too many wonderful people from the LGBT community to consider homosexuality a mere “issue.” These are people, and they are our friends. When they tell us that something hurts them, we listen. And Amendment One hurts like hell.

The danger that this second camp falls into is to argue from the lines of emotionalism (which Evans almost does), that is, to say opposing same-sex marriage is mean and mean people are never good Christian witnesses, so we should stop opposing same-sex marriage. As good as it sounds, this is a flawed argument, as opposing most culturally normalized sin is inevitably mean but necessary, and Hansen is right in that this line of argument replaces biblical authority with our very volatile emotions. But as much as I understand Hansen and DeYoung’s wariness and point that homosexuality is a sin, they do not understand that legalization of same-sex marriage is not exactly the same. And thus, I must personally side with Evans and Byas, but not because it is mean to be anti-gay marriage. But because of what Byas hints at, concerning Christian justice, in point one of his current blog entry:

I know it is hard to grasp, but this matter has nothing to do with whether or not homosexuality is a sin. If it does, then you are probably being inconsistent since there are lots of things that Christians consider “sinful” that they do not legislate against. For instance, if God wants us as a nation to live by his laws, why are we okay supporting the freedom of religion? Shouldn’t we be out trying to ban other religions? If we are okay with freedom of religion,which is a law that basically mandates that our country allow for idolatry (according to the Christian), aren’t we being hypocritical?

I am still not for same-sex marriage, but I am not for Amendment One. If I could have it my way, I think it is wrong to put into law either banning or legalizing of such a notion. In a sense, the government should stay out of it, but as we do not live in an idealistic world, I think that Christian justice calls for allowing same-sex unions (I am still uncomfortable of calling it marriage). Christians are not only called to evangelize, but our actions are to seal, in a sense, our message. Our actions are to viscerally convey that our message is true. How to do that is not homogeneous, but I know it is not marching to vote for a gay marriage ban and celebrating it. The co-existence of diversity is possible because of justice, and justice requires, like Evans says, the washing of feet, the feet of our friends, the feet of our so-called ‘enemies’. Because isn’t that what our Lord did for wretches like us?

Obama, Yogurt, and Journalism

I have, for a long time, had a secret desire to be a journalist. Travel the world, get paid for writing (short pieces of writing), meeting influential people, but with all the imagined glamour of that career, journalism too has a daily grind involved that I am not so keen on. So I continue vicariously feeding my secret desires by reading and watching the morning news, and today, I sat in front of the tube watching yogurt be split on President Obama’s leg.

My immediate reaction was, “Why the heck are they reporting on this? Don’t they have anything better to talk about?” But then I immediately caught myself, “what’s so wrong with news such as this?” Isn’t a world where we only have to report such incidents the world for which we are striving? reporting? I always remember the line in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine documentary where they compared the docile Canadian news to the violence-filled American counterpart. The line exclaimed by the newscaster still is fresh in my mind, “New speedbumps!”

So I hope that our news is filled more with such reporting, not as a guise to the events that need attention out there, but in hopes that it will be reflective of the realities of the world. It is probably a vain hope, but I think it is better to hope than not. Or better yet, we can combine important news with some levity, which is brilliantly accomplished, impromtu, by another president of these United States.

“Stay Home, Woman!”

So the supposed ‘War on Women’ rages on. Earlier this week a Democratic strategist, Hilary Rosen, accused Ann Romney for having “never worked a day in her life” and thus was not equipped to advise Mitt Romney on current economic issues. It seems that it wasn’t as malicious as the media discussion makes it out to be (judge for yourself, here’s the video), but regardless of the force of the comment, it has triggered much discussion about the choices of women. It seems that both the Democrats and the Republicans acknowledge that the choice of the women to be a stay home mom needs to be respected. But in the midst of this cloud of political correctness, there was language thrown around about women having to sacrifice career for child rearing, and because such choice is respectable, Hilary Rosen’s comments were condemnable. Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of Morning Joe, made an interesting contribution to the discussion: that the choice to choose career over child rearing is, in a different perspective, a sacrifice, the sacrifice of a choice to have children. So what is the more respectable choice for a woman? To choose career or to choose to be a stay-home mother? Or maybe the more respectable choice is to try to juggle both? I don’t dare offer my opinion. I’ll defer to the opinions of Brzezinski and other nuanced female voices.

But there is one thing that needs pointing out. It is the interesting fact that underneath this discussion, no one really realizes what people are actually doing when weighing between career and motherhood. That is, the question of value is being overlooked. Not the value of choice, America is ultra-sensitive and attentive about that. But America never questions whether it is right that the value of the self comes from what we do, whether we do work or whether we do parenting. And I wonder, maybe that is at the heart of this discussion, maybe it is our inability to recognize one’s value apart from our ‘doing’ that we even get into these discussions. So then then how do we find our value apart from our doing, apart from our choices?

Kony 2012: For or Against?

So this past week, I was one who was caught up in the viral nature of the documentary video of Invisible Children (IC) titled KONY 2012. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you take a peek. The film is very inspirational and effective as is show by the many critiques, rejoinders, conversations, and arguments that are flying out there in the media and social media. There are many critiques and rebuttals and I do not want to get bogged down in the slew of information flying out there, so you can decide for yourself. Here are some places you can go: Justice in Conflict blog, Foreign Policy blog, Time Global Spin blog, Invisible Children’s response.

Some of the critique seems valid: that the video is overly emotional without providing enough information, some say the video implies a very “white man is the savior” complex, others say that the methodology that IC is undertaking is entirely flawed, that Kony actually isn’t the worst embodiment of evil and that there are more pressing things to turn our attention and resources to, like the ‘nodding disease‘. I believe all these critiques have merit to an extent, and I have come to agree for the most part that that IC’s efforts could be maybe use better elsewhere (for one, bringing Kim Jong Un, since his dad already died, to justice, I think bring down the leader of North Korea would have more far reaching effects than hunting a criminal who’s a fugitive in the forests). But I do think that the video and especially what the video has created, that is the plethora of conversations, is of some value.

It has value because of what justice is. I don’t mean philosophically, but to the average individual. To the average person who checks Facebook 50 times a day, justice is nothing but an emotional high. I would even say that to all of us who are blogging, writing, responding on the internet in what we think is a constructive or intelligent manner, justice is again merely a thought that gives us good feelings. That’s why the video works so well. It moves people initially. Because justice is always sweet when you bandwagon, and most people do not realize that the rest of the ride is very rarely sweet, that it is hard and sometimes even painful, because most of us jump off that wagon before it starts to hit the rocky road. Then we go back to our computer screens, checking Facebook for the next emotional high that pops up in our news feed. This is why those of us who are not doing any alternate acts of justice cannot be fully critical (of course we can point out errors) against those people who are acting and spending their time and energy, even if it may seem wrongly directed. Because on the individual journey of justice they are ahead of us. They are our teachers.

So I do not think I will be donating to the Kony 2012 Campaign, but I will not be against their campaign. For the average individual, IC is a small part of a life long education process, one nudge, but maybe an important one for that indifferent person to be moved to fight injustice, to actually learn the difficult life of Justice, and not merely feel or rage about it. As Bruce Waltke teaches us the true meaning of justice, “The wise and righteous are those willing to disadvantage themselves in order to advantage others.”

Christians of NYC: Jeremy Lin is Secondary

Lately, there have been more Facebook status updates concerning the new NY Knick phenomenon: Jeremy Lin. His work ethic is respectable and his story of being released from the Warriors very moving. Even his humble Christian attitude is extremely attractive, as the Wall Street Journal is calling him the new Tim Tebow, but there seems to be a need for this reminder, particularly for Christians in NYC: Jeremy Lin is secondary.

This is not a call to stop the craze for ‘Linsanity’ but rather to use his public attraction to call attention to a pressing issue (dare I say more pressing than his likeness to Tebow) in the New York City area. Churches that meet in public schools are in danger of potentially losing their worship space triggered by the evicting of a small Bronx evangelical church this past December. Tim Keller, Senior Pastor of Redeemer Church in NYC, blogged the post, “On NYC Schools’ Decision to Ban Churches“, which focuses our attention to the importance of the issue:

I am grieved that New York City is planning to take the unwise step of removing 68 churches from the spaces that they rent in public schools. It is my conviction that those churches housed in schools are invaluable assets to the neighborhoods that they serve. Churches have long been seen as positive additions to communities. Family stability, resources for those in need, and compassion for the marginalized are all positive influences that neighborhood churches provide. There are many with first-hand experience who will claim that the presence of churches in a neighborhood can lead to a drop in crime.

The great diversity of our city means that we will never all agree completely on anything. And we cherish our city’s reputation for tolerance of differing opinions and beliefs. Therefore, we should all mourn if disagreement with certain beliefs of the church is allowed to unduly influence the formation of just policy and practice.

I disagree with the opinion written by Judge Pierre Leval that: “A worship service is an act of organized religion that consecrates the place in which it is performed, making it a church.” This is an erroneous theological judgment; I know of no Christian church or denomination that believes that merely holding a service in a building somehow “consecrates” it, setting it apart from all common or profane use. To base a legal opinion on such a superstitious view is surely invalid. Conversely, I concur with Judge John Walker’s dissenting opinion that this ban constitutes viewpoint discrimination and raises no legitimate Establishment Clause concerns.

A disproportionate number of churches that are affected by this prohibition are not wealthy, established communities of faith. They are ones who possess the fewest resources and many work with the poor. Redeemer has many ties with those churches and their pastors, and our church community invests time and resources to assist them to be good neighbors in their communities.

Let them be those good neighbors. I am hopeful that the leaders of New York City and the legislators of New York State will see the value of a society that encourages all spheres of culture—the church, government, education, business, etc—to work together for human flourishing.

So let the FB status updates and craze for Jeremy Lin continue to flood our news feeds, I, too, am encouraged by his success and humility. Yet it is not the NBA, the NY Knicks, nor Jeremy Lin who hold the keys to the Kingdom, that was given to the Church of Jesus Christ. Let’s raise awareness and do what we can to keep the churches of NYC from homelessness.

(There seems to have been positive development as stated in this NY Editorial, but let’s continue to hope for more.)

Kim Jong-Il’s Death: Some Thoughts

On December 19th, 2011 (Korean Time) the second generation of DPRK’s dictatorship ended with the passing of Kim Jong-Il. A deluge of facebook statuses, tweets and blogs seemed to have turned their attention to the rather unexpected news the death of the ‘Dear Leader’ in order to announce, describe and even predict the nature and effect of the event. For those interested in doing some reading concerning the event, check out the following articles: Washington Post’s “North Korea after Kim Jong-Il“, Times:World Blog’s “The Korea: To Reunify or Not?“, Nautilus Institute’s “Kim Jong-Il’s Death Suggests Continuity Plus Opportunity to Engage“, DailyNK’s “A Rare Breed of Dictator Is Gone“, Korea Economic Institute’s ”10 People You Need to Know for Transition in NK“.

Many have predicted, or maybe just hoped, for the opening of the NK borders and the falling of the regime with Kim Jong-Il’s death as the potential catalyst. Adrian Hong, with an article in Foreign Policy titled “How to Free North Korea“, argues that NK will inevitably fall and that it is only a matter of “when and how”. He adds that it is the moral responsibility of the global community to organize and be active in the process instead of waiting:

This much is clear: North Korea will fall. It is simply a question of when and how. But it is far better to have a coordinated, controlled landing, at the time of one’s choosing, instead of waiting for the worst to happen at any moment. And a reunified, free Korea can be a powerful force for good in the world, and a potent economic engine.

But missing this opportunity to bring Pyongyang into the international community would be a grievous error. North Korea’s crimes do not end at its own borders. Beyond state-sponsored acts of terror, kidnappings, and assassination attempts of foreign government officials, human rights activists, and defectors, it has also sold weapons, missiles, technology, and nuclear materials to a who’s who of unfriendly countries, including Egypt, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. It has engaged in the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, mass government-sanctioned insurance fraud, and the exportation of North Korean slaves all over the world.

North Korea is not a modern nation-state. It does not exist for the welfare of its populace, nor to safeguard the rights of it’s citizens. It exists for the sole benefit of the king and his barons — a ridiculously-scaled Mafia criminal state — and must be treated as such.

The very progress of our global civilization is for naught if we continue to let the very idea of North Korea exist. North Korea is not a failed state, with warlords fighting for land and treasure. Its atrocities do not stem from factional fighting, crimes of passion, or mob violence. It is on another level entirely — a staggering system entirely built and mastered for the express purpose of propagating human suffering and ensuring the continued exploitation of the people so that the very few can benefit.

It is a moral obligation of the highest order that the international community intervene. What can be done, we must do — and now is the time.

The political, international and global implications are of great interest to me, but my knowledge on such perspectives are limited. And ultimately, the eternal perspective on the effect of this death event seems to me of greater importance. So what are the implications (from an eternal perspective)? In some ways nothing. As one of my professor likes to say “[God] is God, and we are not. He is God and there is no other.” (From God with Us). Kim Jong-Il is dead and God is alive. Kim Jong-Il will answer to God in all he did as any ‘good’ or ‘evil’ man will. Joe Carter makes an interesting comparison in the post “The Shared Fate of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-Il“, the former was a good man and the latter, despicable, and yet without Christ their end fate is the same: condemnation. As true and important is the message of Carter’s blog, I don’t find it particularly helpful for the occasion. Is the Gospel Coalition so concerned to protect the gospel of grace from the intrusion of works, that the millions in NK who have no access to the gospel of grace is of lesser concern? These may be erred assumptions but the sense one gets is a business to protect rather than to advance the gospel. While articles like Hong’s are optimistic, in an ephemeral perspective, towards the opening of the country, where is the eternal perspective and the optimism of the Church for gospel advancement in NK? Ed Stetzer and Justin Taylor start us possibly in the right way, but more is needed. Stetzer and Taylor call for prayer, and yes, in that sense, God will work his eternal plan. Maybe NK will not follow suit to the revolutions of the Middle East, but I cannot help but hope that the Church is ready. That is, when NK opens, however it will open, the Church be ready, not merely with gospel tracks to hand out or with just arms length evangelism, but with up-close, personal, live-with evangelism, to be ready to give the gospel with our lives and not just our words.

Isn’t it rather ironic that the Korean War is technically not over, and yet the Korean people (particularly the South) live as if it is peace time? The irony lies in the similarity of the Christian illusion to spiritual peace. How often does the Christian Church live as if there is peace, that there is no spiritual war raging on? It may be that NK does not open up for a while, maybe not even in the lifetime of the “Great Successor” Kim Jong-Eun. But the question remains. Will the Church be prepared to invade the vacuum of religion in the people of NK or will that opportunity, when presented, slip through her fingers?

Fighting against REAL Injustice

While Occupy Wall Street people occupy themselves with a cause that mostly like is not about injustice (for it is when you defend something other than yourself that a true act of justice is performed), there has been a surge of activism in the South Korean peninsula which seems to be more fitting with what one may call a ‘just endeavor’ (btw, an interesting read on Occupy: “Brick by Brick“). The film Dogani (도가니) has raised so much awareness (4.4 million people according to NYT) of unjust laws protecting teachers who commit sex crimes. Here is the trailer of the film:

An article from The Economist points out that in a report given by the education ministry “in September 2010, the punishment for teachers who commit sex crimes is usually nothing more than a salary cut or a short-term suspension. It is typical for other categories of convicted sex criminals to be sentenced either to suspended sentences, fines or probation.”

Other such injustices that point to the weakness or failure of the rule of law are incidents such as the following that a New York Times article points out, the article titled, “Film Underscores Koreans’ Growing Anger Over Sex Crimes“:

Last year, for example, Chey Cheol-won, 41, a trucking company owner and cousin of one of the country’s richest men, was convicted of hitting a 52-year-old former union activist 13 times with an aluminum baseball bat while his executives watched. He then wrote out a 20 million won check on a company account and threw it in the victim’s face. Mr. Chey received a suspended sentence.

The rise in awareness has, in the case of South Korea, moved politicians to slowly change laws and pass bills that strengthen laws that have often been so inept to protect the weak, poor and disabled. Once again, this political stir in the far east guides my attention to the people who think they are the 99% of this world, toward the people who think they are the oppressed. Yes, maybe relatively speaking, they are economically oppressed. Yes, there may be a point in saying that America doesn’t struggle with such issues as the rule of law. Yes, the heart of the Occupy movement may even source itself from a noble cause, but quite frankly, it most likely will not escape the label of a temper tantrum. What the Occupy people need (wait, they don’t even know what they are asking for…) is a dose of realism, to use the English idiom, to understand that there are bigger fish to fry. To get out of that small pond of ethnocentrism, of individualism. To get out into an ocean of bigger perspectives. To learn the world.

Why Occupy Wall Street?

By Doug Savage (www.savagechickens.com)

A friend of mine had a ‘gchat’ status up the other day that went something like this: ‘The occupy wall street is the 2nd dumbest idea for a protest. The first being the Korean protests over Dok-do’ (I apologize for the paraphrase). His reasoning placing the Dok-do dispute at #1 was due to how people were protesting, I am unsure but he was possibly referring to this: “Event to honor Nongae draws fire“. Though I do not sense the extreme nationalism that some Koreans feel concerning their ownership of the island, I do personally think Dokdo is worthy of protest due to its economic significance, though the methods of protest are another story.

As for the ’2nd dumbest idea’ of a protest, this Occupy Wall Street movement does, in many ways, deserve that informal title, but mainly for two reasons. One, the cursory message of the protest seems awfully like socialism: “Distribute that wealth that those 1% earned through the system that we are ALL a part of.” And if it is true that this is the main message, then those holding up signs “This is not the world our parents wanted for us”, well, neither is the one you’re asking for. Second, I really do not think that all the people out there really believe the thrust of the protest, that is the nature of mob mentality, you join sometimes just to be part of the crowd and even at the expense of the truth (here’s an interesting article concerning that: “The Crowd is Untruth“).

Ultimately, what irks the protesters of this protest, I believe, is not the issues at hand but the childishness of the protesters. Meaning, they are not the 99%. Nor are they the 1%. But relative to the global community, they are above average, whatever that percentage may be. This makes the protesters look like they just want to be the 1%, it make them look as greedy as the people of Wall Street, just on a smaller scale. But this protest can be of some value if everyone knew for what they should be protesting. Someone who knows the difference between extreme poverty and the working poor (he defines it in his book, The End of Poverty) seems to shed some light. Jeffrey Sachs writes in his article “Occupy Wall Street and the Demand for Economic Justice“:

The sense of injustice, in short, is not just about the unfairness of a small part of society living in unimaginable wealth while so much of the rest of society lives in economic desperation. It’s not just about the top 12,000 American households with more income than the poorest 24 million households. It’s about the degradation of politics that turns wealth into power through campaign financing, lobbying, and the revolving door of business and government.

“Wealth into power”. That won’t change. Money by definition holds in it influence, which is power. But what must change is the “revolving door”. The destination of the power, so to speak. Is power, whether in the medium of money or anything else, being used to serve the people? Or is power being used to maintain power? When the revolving door keeps cycling power into itself, that is when politics truly degrades.

Sachs, ends on a positive note concerning the protests and is very supportive. I am still skeptical. Again, not because of what it stands for, but mainly because I do no think it will work. Call it pessimism, but this one I’ll throw in the basket of realism. Because I know that greed (along with pride) are the two biggest problems of humanity. They are what makes us inhumane. The solution? We need to find something that turns us outward, vacating the ‘I want’ of our primary concerns and replacing it with ‘how can I give?’. There is one thing that can do this, but I don’t think most of America has found it yet.

Evangelicals and Gay Marriage…

New York State has recently become the largest state to legalize same-sex marriages. Many have cheered and many have feared, but reactions aside, what must really be the concern moving forward? Al Mohler gives some helpful comments in The Wall Street Journal article, “Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution“:

In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. We have often spoken about homosexuality in ways that are crude and simplistic. We have failed to take account of how tenaciously sexuality comes to define us as human beings. We have failed to see the challenge of homosexuality as a Gospel issue. We are the ones, after all, who are supposed to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only remedy for sin, starting with our own.

So then, will evangelicals learn from their failures?

Rights, Wrongs, Prostitution and Justice??

Recently, this Tuesday, around 450 prostitutes and pimps went on protest with white burial robes or underwear with red and white body/face paint. The development of former red light districts into apartments and office building has caused a big hit towards business for the pimps and prostitutes. There seems to have been much progress in ousting the illegal business as the Korean newspaper, Daily Chosun, reports (titled ‘Prostitutes, Pimps Rally for Right to do Business‘):

In the once notorious red light district in Cheongnyangni, which at one time was home to around 700 prostitutes, only 60 remain. The red light district in front of Yongsan Station near central Seoul used to house around 120 brothels, but only six or seven remain and even they will be shut down next month.

Here is another article from Huffington Post, ‘South Korean Prostitutes, Pimps Rally Against Police Crackdown‘, and another from Washington Post, ‘Masked South Korean sex workers rally against police crackdown on brothels‘. And a youtube clip from AP at the bottom of this post.

As one who sees prostitution as a clear ‘wrong’ this crackdown on prostitution seems to be a very good thing, and it may appear that justice is being well served. But to merely stop at that and be content is to miss the purpose of the law. The law, in a secondary sense, exist for people not people for the law (adaptation from Mk 2:27). We must (particularly if you are a Christian) surface the question that is begged yet can be so easily hid in the shallow meaning of justice. For what are these prostitutes rallying? To be able to prostitute themselves legally? Not really. What they are rallying for is the right to work. It is just this situation that prostitution has been the only or easiest option for them (and sometimes not an option as they are coerced). So then, are we to be happy that prostitution is disappearing at the expense of these people ability to sustain themselves (Of course, individual motivations and responsibilities are involved but I refrain from that discussion for the sake of focus and space)? Is it proper justice that the rich landowners become richer at the expense of joblessness and poverty of others? This situation reminds me of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, when the peddlers on the streets were force out of the city to allow for a more presentable atmosphere. To see justice as merely rights and wrongs will only lead to patchwork enforcement. It will never get to the deeper more entrenched issues of holistic justice. Possibly through these events justice can find its original meaning, not just for the sake of etymology, but for the sake of people, people who deep down are just looking, though misguided, for dignity and significance.

**Warning** Some of these images may be disturbing and explicit.