Virgin Voyage

My husband has been after me to start blogging, mostly because he gets a little tired of all my ranting and raving about the state of our society here in America. I'm a masters-level clinical social worker that has chosen to move into "macro-level practice" (to the non-social work world, that means no individual client contact, but more "big picture" stuff), and focus on social justice, politics, and all things policy-related.

I'm uniquely positioned to provide interesting view-points on the world: I was raised in the Evangelical Christian church (and the Republican Party!) and yes, consider myself to be one of those "born-again Christians"; I hold both bachelor's and master's degrees in social work and have worked in the field of adolescent mental health for more than a dozen years; I'm a die-hard Progressive Liberal Democrat and worked on Senator Wellstone's last campaign; and, I'm a happily married heterosexual woman that is firmly allied with the gay community, having several dear friends and family members in the GLBT community. I guess I'm kind of an enigma of sorts, actually - I can see the world from a lot of different angles, but am quite thoughtful and knowledgeable about where I choose to come down on the issues.

So, here we go. It'll be interesting to put my ideas down where someone - anyone, really, can read them! Things like, oh, the Terry Shaivo case that about drove me out of my mind (let the woman die in peace, for pete's sake!!); the same-sex marriage debate that we can't seem to let go of here in Minnesota (what's being threatened, anyway?! aren't divorce rates over 50%?!); and Tom DeLay's strange idea that being an unethical politician is okay and somehow fits into his strong "moral values" that won both him and Bush their seats again last fall (and made me nauseous for weeks on end)! Maybe someone out there will actually appreciate my rantings?!