A few years ago I switched to an entirely different kind of New Year's resolution. Instead of vowing to improve, I pledge to do a better job of accepting my bad habits - to stop worrying about failing to be the person I used to imagine I could be.

If I want to read S.J. Perelman's Chicken Inspector No. 23 for the third time instead of some anguished, politically correct saga of a girl growing up in a trailer park in Kingman, Arizona, with an alcoholic mother who makes her straighten her naturally curly hair and won't let her date a Navajo boy or pursue her goal of becoming (naturally) a writer, I will. And I will laugh like a lunatic while doing it.

During my time in the entourages of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, I never saw either of them attack and punish those who disagree, as Dobson does on a regular basis.

When you stand with the outcasts, you stand with Jesus, and when you despise the outcast, you despise Jesus, as well. Becoming an activist is simply a matter of putting love into action.

Like the people of Israel who created a golden calf to represent God while Moses was away, fundamentalist Christians have built their own idols to represent God until Jesus returns. The religion of fundamentalism is idolatry.

The Bible is not a book of magic. It's a book of mystery. You can't just quote verses that support your prejudices or guarantee your health, wealth, and happiness and demand that God 'follow through' as promised. God is not limited to the words of Scripture. God is still speaking.

We cheer the presence of an openly gay woman or man on television there are large numbers of people in Virginia and other states who see these public affirmations as another step towards the country's oblivion.