And that's the difference

I have a right to worship who and how I want.

I do not have a right to insist others worship who and how I want.

I have a right to support or oppose proposed laws based on my morality, which is informed by my religion.

I do not have a right to insist others support or oppose those bills based on my morality, informed by my religion.

I have a right to choose to associate with, or refrain from associating with, people whose morals and life choices I approve or disapprove of.

I do not have a right to insist others associate with, or refrain from associating with, people whose morals and life choices I approve or disapprove of.

I have a right to religious freedom.

I do not have a right to dictate others' religious expression.

An Open Letter About Christmas

Dear easily offended American Christians,

There is no anti-Christian conspiracy regarding the holiday greetings expressed to you publically by commercial organizations and/or their employees.

I could stop there, or just point to last year's rant on this topic, but I'm afraid you've shown me that you're very, very thick, so I feel a need to expand on this:

When someone wishes you "Happy Holidays", it's not an insult to you or to your religion. As a commenter on a blog I read recently pointed out, it's actually someone wishing you well for basically the entire month of December and a bit of January to boot, in fact, but even leaving that aside: it's not them prejudicially choosing to use a generic greeting from some secular humanist plot, or some liberal atheist snobbery about the word Christmas. It's them choosing to use a greeting that doesn't presume to tell people what they should be celebrating. That's the opposite of prejudice.

Get this through your heads: not everyone in this country is Christian. Not everyone in this country is even nominally Christian. And unless you're awfullly ostentatious, your Christianity is not visible to people, nor is someone else's lack of Christianity. The people who aren't Christian look and dress and talk and act just like you (barring any cross you might be wearing, and be honest: you probably aren't). So those store employees? They don't know which holiday you're planning to celebrate, if any, and therefore, it has nothing to do with your religion.

(As to the random wingnut who posted on their blog that "holiday" is somehow an insulting word: the word 'holiday' derives from "holy day", as in "what Christmas is". Seriously. That was pretty stupid even for this brand of stupidity.)

As I said last year: Get over it. No one is stopping you from religiously celebrating Christmas by not making sure they use the word regularly. Or, if they are, your faith is pretty fragile.

Which, come to think of it, it must be, if you think that other people not celebrating your holiday properly somehow damages your faith.

Maybe you should be thinking more about that.

Love,

Me

You're not HELPing....

[Note: I had not heard about the definitive canceling of the book-burning before writing this. I am glad it was canceled, but I think the sentiment in here is important anyhow (because someone else out there is surely contemplating something similar), so I'm leaving this up.]

Dear Pastor Book-burner,

I know that's not your name, and that you, strictly speaking, haven't burned books yet. (Or at least not the books you're getting known for wanting to burn. Who knows what you've done in your spare time before?) But that's what you're currently getting famous for. Whether or not you go through with it, right now what you're mainly known for is: "The guy who thinks burning a religion's holy book will accomplish anything meaningful."

I try to avoid political posts...

Dear Easily Offended People of America,

The words "Muslim" and "American" are not antonyms. There were American Muslims who died at the towers on 9/11. So calling building a mosque in the vicinity of the former towers "an insult to the memories of the 3000 Americans killed" is kinda, you know... stupid. There really isn't another word for it. Well, that's not true. There are lots of other words: short-sighted, hateful, bigoted, insulting, and ignorant come to mind.

"It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero." No, what's insensitive and uncaring is refusing to admit that Muslims are not some monolithic hive-mind where everyone in the religion agrees with the actions of the extremists. Of course, if it were really true that all Muslims should be considered extremists and terrorists because of the actions of a few, than all Christians likewise should be considered extremists and terrorists as well, because it's not as if there has never been an act of terrorism committed by a Christian.

Christians have also stolen, murdered, abused, and otherwise harmed their fellow man. Does that mean that Christianity is to blame for those acts? Or do you accept that in every religion, there are people who are capable of heinous acts, and blame the individuals instead of the religion? Because those are your choices... and if you choose the latter choice, then you must include Muslims in that acceptance as well.

As usual, I am deeply disappointed that some of the worst comments on this issue come from people who claim to be Christian. Jesus would not call that love for your brother, and neither do I.

A couple of links

Via one of my old friends, the moderate voice of American Muslims regarding a recent attempt by non-Muslims to be stupid about how Muslims feel about visual depictions of Muhammad. (No, they didn't call it stupid. I am calling it stupid. Going out of your way to offend people of a specific religion is stupid... and it violates the "don't be a dick" rules of many religions.)

Via another friend, a liberal Christian shared blog, bearing witness (dreamwidth|livejournal). From their profile:

Jesus Christ lived and preached love and acceptance of all, but it increasingly seems like the most vocal Christians are preaching intolerance and hatred. So we, as Christians who believe in Christ's true message, think it's past time for us to exercise our right of rebuttal.

Note that our aim is not to evangelise to non-Christians about our religious beliefs, but rather to evangelise to other Christians about our political beliefs, and to strengthen ourselves in fellowship with others who take these beliefs as not merely compatible with, but actually required by, our faith.

Sounds good to me.

Modest dress and the law

I feel somewhat disturbed by the number of countries in Europe which have banned, in part or in whole, Muslim head coverings.