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Saturday, September 5, 2015

Pumpkins and Persecution

We all know how I feel about pumpkin, right?

It's gross. It's icky. I hate it with every fiber of my being, and then some. I don't want to taste it, I don't want to smell it, I don't want it near me unless I'm hacking it to pieces in the process of making a jack-o-lantern....and even then I usually gag a time or two.

So a year or two ago when I was working at the fast food joint, pumpkin season rolled around like it always does. We started serving pumpkin spice coffees and pumpkin ice cream and other grotesque items made with that horrendous stuff.

Guess what? I had to deal with it.

I could have told my boss, CrankyPants, that I refused to serve anything related to pumpkin because I thought that it was gross and icky, and she would have shown me the door. I could have quit then and there and just kept going on with my life elsewhere. Or, as I chose to do, I just sucked it up and served the damned pumpkin crap. And life went on.

I bet you can see where I'm going with this, can't you?

I am so sick and tired of seeing posts floating through my newsfeed saying that Kim Davis is being persecuted because she's a Christian and she's standing up for her rights. No, she's not being persecuted. She's being punished for not performing the job that she was elected to do, and that she most likely took an oath of office promising that she would do.

That's not persecution. That's the consequence of breaking the law.

She can believe whatever she wants to believe. She has that right. Whether or not I agree with her isn't the point. (For the record, just in case you're new here - THIS is how I feel about equal rights.) She's standing up for what she believes in, and that's ok. I don't agree with her, but in a way I almost (I said almost) admire her for sticking to her guns.

What's not ok is that she's not doing her job, and by not doing her job she's violating other peoples' rights.

She's a government employee. The law says that everyone has the right to get married, but she's using her religious views to prevent that from happening.

HER religious views. She is trying to impose HER religious views on everyone else in Rowan County, regardless of what religion they practice themselves.

This country was founded in part on the freedom of religion. But folks, it's not just freedom OF religion.

It's also freedom FROM religion. People are free to choose not to follow any religion at all.

If homosexuality, gay marriage, or singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" while driving violates your religious beliefs, then don't participate in those activities. IT'S THAT SIMPLE.

Don't like it? Don't do it. But the law says that you can't stop anyone else from doing it either.