The Courage of Your Conviction, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #396 | @MDWorld

September 6, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 0 Comments

Just imagine… you and your spouse-to-be did your blood tests, you’ve put your documentation together and you pile into the car to get your marriage license. You get to the clerk’s office on a Friday at 2:30 PM, only to find out that said clerk is an orthodox Jew who deeply believes his bible, which says that thou shalt do no work on the sabbath.

Just imagine… you’ve been standing in line for a half-hour at your local In-And-Out Burger, only to be told by the Hindu counterperson that he will not sell you or anybody else any red meat products.

Just imagine… you’re a woman and you’ve been standing in line at the DMV all day, only to have your drivers license renewal denied by the orthodox Muslim clerk. After all, women driving automobiles is heretical to the clerk’s faith.

Just imagine… you are a faithful Christian who couldn’t care less about marriage equality. It’s not your business. Your faith dictates you won’t marry somebody of the same sex as you, and, by the way, it also dictates you won’t cheat on your spouse and you won’t get divorced. That’s your faith, you’re an adult and you’ve decided that the dictates of your faith are such that you will not engage in such banned behavior. But you also believe in the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of religious expression, so you let other people follow their own belief systems because… it’s none of your business.

Here on Earth, 17 sundry county clerks have refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and maybe some have stopped issuing marriage licenses to all human beings, as in the case of the incarcerated Democrat Kim Davis. Both actions directly oppose the rule of law, and these government officials took an oath to uphold the law.

Ms. Davis says she answers to a higher law: the law found in her interpretation of her religion. The Republican judge, appointed by President Bush, said “an oath means something” and tossed her in jail for contempt of court.

I say Ms. Davis should actually show the courage of her convictions and resign from a job that she finds contradicts her self-assessed morality. Turns out, she’s not interested.

I realize the unemployment rate in her neck of the woods, Rowan County Kentucky, is about four times higher than the national average. But we are talking about her oath of office as well as her religion, her faith, and her moral structure. “I love my lord and must be obedient to him and to the word of god.” According to the law, she’s entitled to her belief. But, being a public servant who swore an oath to uphold the law, if she her beliefs are in moral conflict with her job, she should show the courage of her convictions and resign her post.

Good grief. I’ve quit jobs over less significant moral stands.

And now we have dogmatist clowns like Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum saying things like how the persecution of Ms. Davis is further proof that there is a “war on Christianity.”

Yep. That’s right. If we don’t allow you to shove your dogma down the unwilling throats of outsiders, then we are violating your rights. We are conducting a war because we don’t want to be forced into your religion.

Your bible says “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” I say, stop screaming persecution you goddamned bigots, and start minding your own business.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com and on the iNetRadio app, www.iNetRadio.com, as part of “Hit Oldies” channel even though his show is way too ass-kicking to be thought of as either “hit” or “oldies.” Weird Sounds first airs Sundays at 7:00 PM Eastern and is rebroadcast three times during the week – check www.getthepointradio.com above for times and on-demand streaming information. Gold is also a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com, joining MDW’s Martha Thomases and sometimes even Michael Davis himself there they, and others, incessantly pontificate upon matters of four-color.