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Communique 10-29-2020 "Same Sex Shrimp Cake"

Writer's picture: Philip DruckerPhilip Drucker

By Philip Drucker

“Same Sex Shrimp Cake”

What is representative government? The Founding Fathers were more than clear in their virtually united view that a government no longer reflective of the views of the nation could not function as a legitimate government, of, by and for the people and accordingly must be removed by revolution if necessary. This is very basic Declaration of Independence thinking and literal black letter analysis, so why has roughly 1/3rd of the country abandoned their rights to live free with the explicit blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

One area of trouble I must admit I have a hard time understanding is why so many persons have gotten it in their heads that denying someone else their rights, is in some bizarre way an extension of your right I imagine to be happy. In America, you are free to practice the religion of your choice with certain restrictions on social conduct, even in the name of practicing one’s own beliefs, polygamy come to mind, do not qualify for protection under the Constitution. All rights, including those religious in nature, are not absolute and must give way to the common social good.

These are lines that until recently we have been able to navigate without too much interference from what I would call in the “zealot empty cone head zone” and have no problem condemning them when they act in a way that, from my perspective, they have no business interfering in in the first place, like everyone else’s beliefs that don’t comport to your own for example.

Excuse me, but I don’t recall asking you to save my eternal soul, particularly if it involves appointing an Associate Supreme Court Justice who apparently thinks bringing back the Spanish Inquisition, or at lease stockades, tar and feathering, public humiliations, ritual hangings, burnings at the stake, and religious persecution as the law of the land, you are well on your way to describing what would be the end of American life as we know it, but little or nothing more.

For these are practices from long ago that we as one society with a changing, living culture have tried and discarded. There are many reasons a nation born after the Ages of Enlightenment and Reason opted for the separation of church and state. There are good reasons for the Free Exercise Clause. There are good reasons for the Establishment Clause. But none that allow for your individual rights to practice the religion of your choice free from government interference to the degree your assertion of rights interferes with the rights of other person to practice their civil rights.

As Thomas Jefferson pointed out as part of the 1786 Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom;

"Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

But perhaps even more illuminating as to the original intent (Amy? If you are listening, I’ve already done the work for you. You’re welcome.) of our Founders in matters of guarding against religious based discrimination and oppression can be found in Madison’s 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance;

“The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men; it is unalienable also because what is here a right towards men is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him."

How did we get so far away from the sage wisdom that has guided us so well through the best and the worst times of our 244 years of history, and will continue to do so once the religious magic pixie and fairy dust eaters calm down again?

How do we allow such obviously harmful to society in general laws allowing employers to refuse to pay for women’s reproductive health care as part of their employee Insurance package? The usual answer is along the lines of “it offends my sensibilities and infringes on my religious freedom to bake a cake for a same-sex couple.”

In terms of economics alone in an economy that is supposed to be free from anti-capitalist sentiment, how does it make sense to limit your customers and hence yours and their ability to freely engage in the laissez-faire pursuit of money for no other reason that you consider such a union a sin, and that somehow baking a cake places you just that much closer to an afterlife of fire and brimstone. A baker condemned by his commercial transactions to an eternity of hell? If you see a light flashing “zealot cone head zone” we here are all on the same page.

My personal lame excuse for religious exemptions from acts of reason, sanity and bereft of any empathy of love form your neighbors comes in the form of “God told me to.” Now I’m not saying these persons are not hearing voices in their heads, but when the “words of God” include mandates as “we will ignore the laws of man and stay open during the Covid-19 pandemic.” This being the stated claim and position from the Hobby Lobby wife who it seems has these kinds of private sessions with her God, who apparently favors the continued sale of all kinds of knickknacks and assorted house crafts over the preservation of human life.

Let me ask you in all honesty and sincerity, how would you, the dedicated Hobby Lobby owners and/or complicit in this scam customer or even casual believer HL is somehow right, (they’re not) have improved your life if an employee gets pregnant against her wishes? If her health is further threatened by the lack of facilities, if any, willing to offer a safe medical procedure known as abortion for any women even if the continued pregnancy is a threat to her own life? What happens if the child is born? Should Hobby Lobby be compelled to offer financial aid and assistance to the mother and her newborn? Should HL or anyone else dictating through their actions often limiting the choices available in a modern society, bear responsibility for the potential or ensuing hardships, harm and peril once suffered?

How is it Pro-lifers believe life begins at conception but once born, the mother and child are now as a matter of religious doctrine “on their own?” Even when their actions bear at least some relationship to the predicament of anothers life, a new life, an ongoing life that if nurtured and encouraged throughout life to be the best they can be, could someday be a contributor to improving all our lives?

Back alley abortions by less than credible physicians or God forbid we return to the days of clothes hanger over the bathtub self-induced abortions should be in and of itself enough reason for the sane among us to reject the recent flood of Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) flooding our state capitols as we speak to supplant the secular rules of law we currently still all enjoy, in favor of religious exemptions filled with the capability of harming the heretical, often pagan, but nowadays mostly heathen non-believers who apparently threaten the second coming of the end of days and an apocalypse full of cats and dogs fighting, reddish cows, rapture this, rapture that may be true, but probably not.

Submitted for your approval, with greetings and an enormous amount of ill will if you are not “one of them” from the “Zealot Empty Cone Head Zone.” God hates shrimp you know, but then again seeing as you like a shrimp cocktail every now and then, we’ll put that down as one of the parts I don’t like so it isn’t true.

My advice? Seeing as homosexuality nor any restrictions on baking pastries is not specifically mentioned in the Bible, wouldn’t it seem better to bake the cake, but leave the shrimp in the sea as God commands? His will, and not the misguided meanderings of your small, homophobic and almost assuredly racist, bigoted and intolerant mind, be done? Pro-birth is not the same as Pro-life. Deal with it.


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