….but freedom comes with responsibility, and the understanding that there are consequences to your actions.

Fox News and other “conservative” outlets would like us to believe that there is a war against Christianity in the United States.  I would like to believe that it is simply life evolving.

I write this from the position of a person who thinks the bible is fiction, that Jesus if he existed was fucking, and that the Holy Trinity is as real as the Tooth Fairy.  I don’t buy into the Christian fairy tales that have been told to us over the years to control our actions and emotions.

I am the type of person the “conservatives” and “Evangelicals” want to pray for and toss Holy Water on.  I am their proverbial devil girl out there destroying society, corrupting the youth, and ruining the real America.

I am 100% okay with that.

With freedom comes responsibility, and I exercise my freedom daily.  I am also responsible with my freedom.  I don’t use my time condemning others to a fictional hell invented by someone 1000 years ago who didn’t want me to die from eating pork not cooked all the way through.  I spend my time defending the rights of others to believe what they wish to believe while making sure that your beliefs don’t infringe on the rights of the collective.  That is responsibility.

The United States is not a Christian nation.  It is a nation that contains Christians.  It’s time that we understand that difference, embrace it, and enforce it.

We are a nation of many faiths, all of which have equal footing underneath that little thing we refer to as the First Amendment to the Constitution.  It’s called the First Amendment because it was the first afterthought to our governing law of the land.  It was important that speech not be infringed when that speech was in contrast to the leaders of the land.  It was important that religion, regardless of what it was, be practiced without the leaders of the land imposing their vizion on the masses and declaring one faith the only legitimate faith, and punishing those who said bullshit.

That is what the First Amendment is about regardless of how Sarah Palin & Bill O’Reilly try to twist it in the wind.

Papa Robertson has the right to think that Blacks were happy living under Jim Crow and that homosexuality is a sin.  His right to believe that is equally protected as the rights of those who wish to call him bigot.  Freedom.  It also means that A&E has the right to suspend him because they don’t want GLAAD camped out on their headquarter steps.  Freedom.

I have zero problem with Papa Robertson expressing his views.  I am actually thankful that he did so that I don’t have to guess about his bigotry.  I prefer my bigots to be loud and out so that I can give them a wide berth. My preference is to know where those who hate me are so I need not fear a shiv to the back.

The backlash that comes from Papa Robertson’s comments does not equal a war on Christianity.  It is actually the expression of our freedom, that we should value first above all. That one person can say red, another can say blue, and we all go on about the business of our days. We should be celebrating this difference not attacking it. Yet, the “conservatives” of Fox and their like minded counterparts have taken this cause – and others – to inflame the hearts and minds of those who fear ….. freedom.

It’s a tool to remind us of our differences, destroy our similarities, and cause confusion.  We have to combat that. We have to rise above our human condition that invites us to hate what doesn’t look like us, sounds like us, and understand that being different doesn’t mean that we don’t equally have the right to exist.

Co-existing in peace might be a little too much to ask at the moment, but acknowledging our right to exist is a start.

No one is telling the Papa Robertson’s of the world that they can’t believe as they wish.  Our legislatures are telling women though that they don’t have a right to police their own uterus.  We are telling homosexual men and women that their partnerships are less valued than heterosexual couples.  We are telling our citizens who are anything other than White and Christian and male that they don’t matter and they don’t deserve equality.

When we elect representatives who legislate a woman’s uterus we are stifling freedom.

When we elect representatives who legislate marriage as only with a man and a woman, we are stifling freedom.

When we elect representatives who legislate their faith….we are stifling freedom.

Papa Robertson is a private citizen.  A&E is a private corporation.  Their expression of their freedom of speech doesn’t matter in the big picture.  He is not making laws nor is A&E.

Where we need to direct our attention is to the men and women we’ve sent to Washington DC and our state legislatures.  They are the ones, expressing their faith…..all over our freedoms.

If we want to maintain our freedom… or as some might say the illusion of that freedom, we need less Papa Robertson and more voter education.

 

 

Aphrodite Brown