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Picture a little country church. It has a white steeple, stained glass windows and a lovely, white porch in front of the double doors leading into the church. On either side of the doors is a pot bellied guy with a handlebar mustache and shaved head, wearing a camouflage shirt, pants and military style boots. He is holding an assault rifle. Above the door to the church is a sign that reads, “Our Lady of White Supremacy – We don’t serve your kind.”
Those two guys packing heat and the rest of the parishioners have deeply held religious beliefs that if you are not exactly like them, you are unholy. You cannot get married inside their church if you are gay, not of their Christian stripe or not of European ancestry. Their descriptors of the unwelcome would be somewhat more, shall we say, “colorful”. They will not serve you in their church nor will they serve you in their privately owned businesses because of their deeply held “religious beliefs”. That is what they will tell you.
No, that is not a far fetched scenario. Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona may have vetoed a law that would have allowed for just such legally sanctioned discrimination, but dozens of other states have pending legislation that would allow exactly the crazy scenario described above. Rand Paul indicated that he would not have supported the portion of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill requires that no one be denied service by privately held businesses.
Americans overwhelmingly oppose hate legislation, yet it continues to pop up in so-called “defense of religion” charades, in voter suppression legislation and other venues. 83% of us may despise our Congress and we may be disgusted with our state houses, but we keep re-electing the same bozos who create this hateful stuff. Here are some reasons that happens:
- – Politicians have gerrymandered districts to ensure incumbents win.
- – Politicians have enacted legislation that ensures that they get lots of money to use to trash
- opponents through expensive television advertising.
- – 63% of us fail to show up and vote so that extremist fringe voters have way more influence
- than their minority views represent.
You cannot do much directly about the first two right now, but you can do something about the third reason. Polls are open from 6:00AM – 6:00PM on November 4 or even longer, depending on where you live. Put it on your calendar right now. And bring your neighbor to the polls with you.
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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better. It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That is the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue. Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same. Thanks. JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.
