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May 22 has officially become "Harvey Milk Day" in California. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Sunday to honor the state's first openly gay politician elected to office by having California school children annually celebrate the man's birthday. Milk is only the 2nd person in The Golden State, after naturalist John Muir, to get a day dedicated to his honor.

Tens of thousands of people from both sides of the issue contacted the governor's staff regarding this controversial bill. Conservative groups had rallied without success to persuade the governor to veto the bill as he did last year. New attention drawn to Harvey Milk by the Oscar-winning movie and plenty of pressure from GLTB activist groups apparently changed Schwarzenegger's mind, however.

Harvey Milk Day will not be a state holiday; banks will be open and the kids will still have to go to school. In their classrooms on that day, according to the new law, teachers will offer lessons "remembering the life of Harvey Milk, recognizing his accomplishments and familiarizing pupils with the contributions he made to this state." In other words, Harvey Milk's homosexual activism gets to be celebrated by an entire day set up in his honor, (while thousands of other historically significant Californians are comparatively ignored).

Geoff Kors, executive director of the huge gay-rights organization Equality California, has said his group would develop curriculum for schools and teachers to use on Milk's birthday.

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who authored the legislation, said, "This will go a long way to better inform Californians as to the nature of the civil rights struggle in the LGBT community."

Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, was not so jubilant. "Under SB 572, schoolchildren could perform mock gay weddings, have cross-dressing contests, and have gay-pride parades right on campus. Why? Because 'Harvey Milk Gay Day' pressures schools to make children honor and support anything and everything that Milk believed in. The sky is the limit. And there's no parental consent in the bill."

No Hero For Children:
Regardless of what Californians may or may not believe about GLTB rights, Harvey Milk was a painfully poor person to teach unsuspecting school kids to honor. The real Harvey Milk was a guy with a bad temper, who freely had sex with teenagers and, according to his biographer, "had a penchant for young waifs with substance abuse problems." The movie about Harvey Milk also conveniently leaves out the fact that Milk was a big supporter of Jim Jones – that same Jim Jones, leader of Peoples Temple, who led over 900 people to their poisoned Kool-Aid deaths in Guyana merely nine days before Milk was slain.

According to Daniel J Flynn in City Journal:

"Milk occasionally spoke at Jones's San Francisco–based headquarters, promoted Jones through his newspaper columns, and defended the Peoples Temple from its growing legion of critics. Jones provided conscripted 'volunteers' for Milk's campaigns to distribute leaflets by the tens of thousands. Milk returned the favor by abusing his position of public trust on behalf of Jones's criminal endeavors."

Milk also willingly used deceit to move himself forward politically. In his last campaign, Milk's camera store was bombed with low-grade explosives.  Milk blamed the bombing on his political enemies, but biographer Randy Shilts notes that, "Years later friends hinted broadly that Harvey had more than a little foreknowledge that the explosions would happen."  That is, the bombs were a set up. "You gotta realize the campaign was sort of going slow, and, well . . ." one friend told Shilts.

It is also relevant to note that Milk was not shot to death because he was gay. He was not a martyr for the gay rights cause. Milk was shot because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time moments after Dan White shot Mayor George Moscone. In fact, White's own campaign manager was homosexual and White had donated money to support gay rights.

Yet, Sean Penn's Oscar-winning performance has done its job, whether or not that performance truly represented history at all. Harvey Milk Day has been signed into existence, and parents and teachers have a rough job ahead of them. If Harvey Milk is to be commemorated, perhaps the full truth about him should be told. If that's not what was intended, then perhaps the governor should be more picky in signing bills to honor any one man.

In addition to the Milk bill, Schwarzenegger signed a bill that expands funding to domestic violence programs aimed at GLTB communities, as well as another Leno bill that allows same-sex couples married before Prop 8 passed to retain their marriage status.  Same-sex couples wed out of state who move to California will also keep all their marriage rights except for the name "married". 

Horatio Spafford was a prominent lawyer and real estate investor in Chicago when the 1871 Chicago Fire hit and destroyed almost all of his property. Two years later, Spafford sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him to England, where his friend DL Moody would be preaching. On the voyage there, the ship sank and all four children were drowned. His wife alone was saved. The couple went on to have three more children, but tragedy struck again when their four year old son died of pneumonia in 1880. Near the end of his life, Spafford moved to Jerusalem and ran charitable ventures like soup kitchens, hospitals, and orphanages. He died in 1888 of malaria and was buried in Jerusalem.

While Horatio Spafford endured crippling tragedy after tragedy, he is most famous for having written one of the most beloved hymns of all time: "It Is Well With My Soul." In the midst of serious personal sorrow, God brought Spafford to a place of peace and security wholly independent of his circumstances.

It is easy to fear in life. There are no promises of happiness or fairness. If anybody promised you a rose garden, then they were either naive for downright dishonest. In fact, when things seem to be running smoothly, tragedy can and often strikes and knocks us off our temporary pedestals of comfort. In John 16:33, Jesus warned us that in this world we would have troubles. "But be of good cheer," he said, "I have overcome the world."

In 1 Peter 4:17, Peter tells us that as God begins to wrap up time as we know it, He will allow events to happen in the body of Christ that will try us and test us to the max. How will we make it through this time of testing, if we don't understand what God is doing, and if we crumble at the first hint of suffering? We desperately need to have a grasp of what God's purpose is for allowing these kinds of trials and, most importantly, we need to understand what to do and how to act in them.

Night Seasons
During a night season, God initiates a purging, a cleansing and a purifying of our souls from everything that is not of faith. At this time, God crushes our self will, so that He can merge it with His own. In other words, it's our own private Gethsemane. As Jesus cried in the garden, "My soul is exceeding[ly] sorrowful unto death...Nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt." (Mark 14:34-36) During this dark season, God teaches us to say, just as Jesus did, "Not my will, but Thine." (Matthew 26:39)

During this time, God can begin to transform our reliance on physical things to things of the spirit. He wants us to learn to walk by faith, not by our senses, our feelings or our understanding. God wants to teach us how to detach ourselves from all physical, emotional and spiritual supports, so that we will be able to respond with "Not my will, but Thine."

Because this season can often be a time of desolation, of dried bones and ruined hopes, many Christians - because they don't understand what God's will is or what He is doing - get so discouraged and defeated that they give up and turn back.

Many will feel like Job, who "looked for good" but only "evil came"; and for "light," but found only "darkness." (Job 30:26) Or like Isaiah, who uttered "We wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places like dead men." (Isaiah 59:9-10)

If we can only remember during our night season that the Holy Spirit has led us into this darkness on purpose. God is not angry at us, and He has not abandoned us – He paid the ultimate price for us, how could He ever abandon us? He brought us to a necessary place where precious things can happen. As he told Mary, whose brother Lazarus had died, "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" (John 11:40)

It is in these places, when our normal human securities are stripped away and all we have is Jesus, that He can begin to do in us those excellent things that can make all the difference in our lives and in our walk with Him.  When the only thing we can do is cling to God, we come to that place where we see Him more clearly than ever before.  That's when the fear goes away, and we can join Horatio Spafford in singing with greater appreciation:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pain shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

And Lord haste the day, when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

To be continued…

It is no secret that the US dollar has been struggling. In fact, during the past three months, banks have been putting 63 percent of their new cash into yen and euro, and only 37 percent into the dollar. This new trend away from the dollar as a reserve currency is no surprise considering current rock bottom interest rates coupled with the mountains of cash the Federal Reserve has been printing. A mere 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks are in dollars right now, and that does not bode well for American prosperity.

The current administration may not be as discouraged by the situation as one might think. As Bond buyer Bill Gross of the Pimco said in a recent CNBC interview, "I think that's part of the administration's plan. It's obviously not announced—the 'strong dollar' is always the policy, so to speak. One of the ways a country gets out from under its debt burden is to devalue."

Yet, David Malpass noted recently in The Wall Street Journal, "No countries have devalued their way into prosperity." It's a great time to borrow capital in dollars, with low interest rates and steady inflation promising a less painful future pay-off. The steady flow of the dollar for off-shore production and manufacturing offers some assurance of wealth for foreign investors, but doesn't secure a lot of help for America. Malpass writes:

"If stocks double but the dollar loses half its value, who beyond Wall Street are the winners and losers? There's been a clear demonstration this decade. The S&P nearly doubled from 2003 through 2007. Those who borrowed to buy won big-time. Rich people got richer, seeing their equity bottom line double. At the same time, the dollar's value was cut nearly in half versus the euro and other stable measures. Capital fled, undercutting job growth. Rent, gasoline and food prices rose more than wages."

In other words, America needs a strong, stable dollar.  Instead, the dollar is in the decline and will continue to sweep downward as long as interest rates remain low and money-printing remains high. Cheap interest rates are helping spur investors so that the economy can build back up, but at the same time are pulling the financial carpet from under our feet.

World leaders also want a strong, stable dollar.  They are not happy about the rise of their own currencies next to the dollar, because their exports therefore become more expensive and less likely to sell in the US market.  Countries like China, which are holding vast amounts of dollars, don't want to see their investment lose value. 

As the dollar continues to fall, it is being replaced as the dominant reserve currency, and we can almost hear voices calling for a single global currency to settle the mess. In March Governor Zhou Xiaochuan of China's central bank advocated for a super sovereign reserve currency, saying:

"The desirable goal of reforming the international monetary system, therefore, is to create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies."

Implementing a global currency would currently present tremendous diplomatic challenges, and the headaches necessary to create it are not yet seen as necessary by most world leaders. Yet, Revelation 13 speaks of a time when all the economies of the world are tied together so that the Coming World Leader is able to require every human on earth to receive a mark in order to buy or sell.

For now, China could do very well to work toward helping strengthen the dollar. If China and those holding large numbers of US dollars want the dollar to stabilize, they should purchase more US goods and services, and help the US economy grow strong.