Wednesday 9 September 2015

"That's just like..... your opinion man."

Picture the scene. 

You are at the store/supermarket doing your grocery shopping. You begin loading all of your items onto the cashiers till. Suddenly she stops you and asks you if you have any beef in your basket. You reply "Yes, I have some steaks and a packet of Birds Eye burgers which are probably more horse than cow but you know what I mean." The cashier looks slightly perturbed and says "Oh sorry miss, I am a Hindu and I cannot sell you beef in accordance with my religious tradition."


"There's your receipt, and here's your change, annnd..... burn forever" 

Like most tolerant, inclusive westerners you are slightly put out by this, but still take the time to apologize yourself, you know.. like how if someone bangs into you on your way out of the dry cleaners and it wasn't really your fault, but you utter the words "Oh excuse me" quickly out of politeness anyway.

 So you pack all of your things quickly back into your basket and you move to the next checkout with the shortest queue. A few minutes later, you start loading your things back onto that conveyance belt thing that nobody really as a name for.. and 30 seconds into it the cashier has finished dealing with the customer in front so she says "Oh excuse me, are those condoms among your things?" You grin sheepishly and say "Oh Yes, I am taking a break from the contraceptive pill so my husband and I are going to use condoms for a while..." "Sorry" says the cashier, "I am a strict Catholic and the very idea of condoms offends me. You will have to use another cashier."


"You might as well be a baby-raper, you both end up in the same place...."

 You don't apologize this time, you have already stood in line twice. You hastily pack your basket and go to the closet cashier. At this point, a concerned manager notices the look of annoyance and the hasty walk and comes over to ask you what the problem is. You explain that you have stood in line twice only to have been told the cashier refused to sell you certain items due to a religious preference. 

"Well" says the manager, "I have noticed that you also have pork in your basket, and Avi, the gentleman on checkout 3 is a Hasidic Jew, so that rules him out as well."

"And Iqbal on checkout 5 is a Muslim, so you definitely cant buy those 4 cans of beer there either."

You resolve to do your shopping elsewhere.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, elegantly explains the stupidity behind the furor in Kentucky. Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Rick Santorum have all gone on the offensive claiming that the first amendment has been broken. It has not. They claim that Kim Davis should simply "move positions" at work, so someone else can issue gay marriage licences in order for us to not offend her religious preferences. That is not how the First Amendment is supposed to work. It guarantees freedom of religion as well as freedom from religion. Any government employee who explicitly values one religious faith over another is essentially placing one group of Americans over another. 

I am a vocal critic of Islam. I am certainly not entirely on the fence on this issue, but if the government begins endorsing one religion over another (in this case Christianity) then what about the rights of all of the Muslim Americans? What about the Sikhs, the Jews, the Hindus, the Atheists, the Agnostics, the Mormons, Scientologists, and the Zoroastrian Americans? (There must be at least three or four surely?)

If Mrs Davis was merely the owner of an independent cake shop refusing to bake a big gay cake, at least we could have some sort of discussion about it. But the constitution is black and white. It was not written to give excuses for the majority (Christians in the United States) to better stomp on the rights of an embattled minority.

 It was written to prevent it from happening. 

 The founding fathers were smart men. Some of them were Christians, some of them were not. Yet all understood the need to have an inherently secular country, precisely because the rights of the majority are always protected by default. There is no need to protect the rights of the majority, because everybody sees things their way. It is the smallest groups of citizens that require protection under the law, regardless of their color, creed, religious preference, or sexual orientation.

 Kim Davis is certainly free to practice her religion in any way she sees fit. I would defend to the death her right to disagree with, and even vocally criticize marriage equality. I will even defend those that preach so-called "hate speech" and do not agree with prosecuting those that spout hateful rhetoric (Muslim preachers and the Phelps family included.) Indeed, people should be free to say whatever they like, as long as free-thinkers are allowed to say whatever they like in rebuttal. 

But actually put words into practice? 

 Not on the governments dime.

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