Good morning, y’all. Gorgeous weather but for the pollen. I guess pollen isn’t weather, maybe a byproduct of weather, but not weather its self. It does stand to reason that the weather folks will talk about pollen count, though. Folks with a sensitivity to the air quality experience the worst symptoms in the Spring and the Fall, so I guess the advent of either season should come from the folks who watch the weather most closely.
I mean, the sports guy could tell us that Fall is coming because it was football season, or Spring is here because it’s baseball season, but it’s just not the same. Big announcements and proclamations should come from the people who understand the most about the topic, right? The way I see it, there’s nothing good going to come from allowing a minority group of small thinkers to determine big decisions for the rest of us based on their limited understanding of a topic. I bet you could still find people that think the Earth is flat, or that the Sun revolves around the Earth. Just because these people believe what they believe with all of their hearts and souls, doesn’t make their conjecture right, right?
To give another example of small minded thinking that is not only wrong in its supposition, but runs contrary to the values that it states to purport, is the Religious Freedom Bill. First we have to lay to rest this silly idea that the Christians in this country are being persecuted. Nothing further could be true. Sadly, the only the example that I can give for the Christians behavior is similar to when you tell a child no, and the child screams “you don’t love me”. The reality of living in Democracy is that not everyone gets their way all of the time. At least that’s how it used to work before this group of do nothing politicians took office. Now the zealots are trying to claim their “religious freedoms” are being impinged on when they are required to allow others their basic civic freedoms.
According to the title, “SB 129 “Georgia Religious Freedom Restoration Act”; provide for the preservation of religious freedom”, was pushed through the legislature ahead of a million of bills more worthy of consideration, so that “religious” shop owners could tell gay people to go to hell when they requested service. Perhaps, I oversimplify, but I like to cut to the quick of the matter. People who have been taught to “love others as themselves” want to push gays out of the door because their “holier than thou” sensibilities are offended. I’m not sure how religious people resolve the “what would Jesus do?” component of this question. Maybe they’re tired of trying to do what Jesus would have done because it doesn’t feed their bigotry and homophobia. Maybe this group of “Christians” just needs to bash folks who are different in some way to feel better about themselves.
Outside of reestablishing segregation, I don’t know what the long term purpose of this bill, and these small minded individuals, hope to accomplish. You can’t make gay go away. You can’t pray it away, and it won’t starve to death because you didn’t make it a wedding cake. It is the Civil Rights issue all over again with a different victim, a different face. It is very easy to see how this bill could have been extended to refuse service to blacks, Hispanics, anybody that didn’t pass the shop owners narrow spectrum of approved people. That’s fine if it is a private club, but, once you are open to the public, you must serve the public. A lot of people lost their lives to gain this right. We don’t need to relive this period of time again.
Fortunately, our governor, Nathan “Can We Make A” Deal, vetoed the passage of the bill. I guess for once I should be glad that Nathan’s interest in getting a piece of every pie led him to do the right thing. There was such a widespread corporate outcry to the bill that Nathan’s chances of landing a cushy board membership after leaving the Governor’s mansion was seriously in question. I suspect that Arthur Blank had old Nathan on speed dial. Building a billion dollar stadium, and then finding out that Atlanta won’t be considered for hosting the Super Bowl because of our discriminatory practices, must have stung Mr. Blank. I’m betting Mr. Blank is a guy who doesn’t get stung much. I’m glad he was there to get in the way of this awful miscarriage, along with all of the other corporate leaders who spoke out.
BTW, Nathan made a nice speech when he vetoed the bill. He actually invoked some Christian values. It will be nice if the rest of the legislature takes heed.