I apologize. My rants have occurred at home and my observations regarding schools, et al have remained private. It is unconscionable to think of myself as a blogger and not blog. I am returning now to the small screen to share pithy insight, no doubt.
I am so tired of thinking differently. A former student and now a very conservative woman posted a picture on Facebook of a new police car with large, bold letters emblazoned across the trunk: "In God We Trust." She thought it was great. Scares me to death. If law enforcement officers are allowed to break the law and announce their bigotry where do we turn for protection from the tyranny of the majority? Who will defend my right to think and believe differently? If law enforcement officers are allowed to boldly state their religious preference how can anyone who holds a different perspective expect objectivity? Once more, the majority has a very difficult time becoming conscious of their persecution because the majority tends to simply believe that if everyone believed as they do there would be no conflicts.
The police car is perhaps a little thing, but I had nightmares. Why? No one else probably even cared. It is the same mentality espoused by one group who would choose to shut down the government unless funding stops for a program they object to on religious grounds. How can they possibly claim to be American and not understand that the protection of civil liberties is virtually the only thing that separates us from tyranny or almost every other nation state? Simply because they believe that their religious beliefs should frame the law of the land. If they do not get their way they will do what Al Qaeda could not do: shut down our government. And in my mind that makes them terrorists. Our history is replete with examples of the march to expand civil liberties to women, child laborers, African Americans and homosexuals. Any effort to shrink those liberties is blind to the uniqueness of America.
And Kim Davis gains support for denying marriage certificates to couples she objects to on religious grounds. She is not fighting for civil rights, she is not even fighting for religious rights. She is a bigot. She is of the same lot as Governor George Wallace who stood on the steps of the University of Alabama in 1963 to fight integration as ordered by the Supreme Court. Wallace was devoted to enacting his bigotry and grounding such bigotry in religion. Scary. Kim Davis is no heroine. She is a bigot. To rally to support Ms. Davis denotes a similar stance on the part of those supporters.
And I will go to church this morning with fellow citizens who very much support the same kind of crap and do not understand that people fled to our shores because of religious persecution elsewhere; because the state leaned heavily toward one religion over another. The most American thing we can do is to get our government or any branch thereof the hell out of supporting one religion or any religion over another, and for the wing nuts to be shown to the door for their willingness to shut down our government if their particular religious view is not enacted into law. That is anti-American terrorism, pure and simple.
If I stand on the street corner in my town and announce that I am a fundamentalist Christian life will go on. I will likely attract a supportive crowd. If I stand on the same corner and announce that I am an atheist, or Buddhist, or Muslim and I will be harassed by fellow citizens who will claim to speak for all of America while they revile me behind my back and seek some strategy in our “free” state to shut me up.
I wholeheartedly support freedom and civil rights. It is absolutely OK for you to hold beliefs that disapprove of same sex marriage, or women voting, or women who are allowed to control their own bodies, or Black Men owning property, etc. It is not at all acceptable, legal or American to act on those beliefs.
See, I should be blogging. Prior to my arrest, that is.
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