In Response to The Garden Guy’s “Personal Choice”
(submitted to the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle letters to the editor)
I know many people who make choices, “personal choices”, based on the movement of their hearts. People who have chosen to stop consuming animals, people who have decided to foster children or become missionaries, people who have decided to join Doctors Without Borders or to run to Darfur to help in anyway that they can. I know about “personal choice”. But when you make a “personal choice” that negatively affects other people, you cannot hide behind this alleged “heart choice” or behind religion. You have to recognize that you are not standing on moral ground, you are standing under the lynching tree, next to the hobbling mallet, next to the torturer, you are standing in front of the jail house door, unjustly mandating how others are treated.
The Garden Guy Company in Houston Texas discriminates. Do they have a right to? Of course, it is a free country. However, do not hide behind my bible. In my bible it says to love all, worship one. It says that God has the final call on all judgment. It says love your neighbor. It says loving those that love you is easy; it’s loving those that affect you adversely, that hate you, that’s hard.
A hard enough job without the added responsibility to judge others as well.
So when Mrs. Faber states that her husband is making a “personal choice” to not do landscaping work for homosexuals, I say, that’s a crock.
A crock of cowardice and ignorance.
It takes courage to swallow your pride, to put aside the earthly societal constrictions placed upon us by each other, and look to what God instructs us to notice, to care about.
The inner person.
The inner person has no color.
No sexual orientation.
The inner spirit is to be our focus. To fixate on anything else is a cop out. To spit vile epithets in defense of categorical sexism, racism, bigotry and discrimination, and claim that these are “personal choices” are as ludicrous a statement as one could possibly utter. I am sure that the teenage boys that attacked and sodomized the Mexican boy in Houston felt that they had some inalienable right to make that “personal choice”. I am sure that people that refuse to hire women who might get pregnant or single mothers feel they have some unassailable right to hire whomever they choose. I am sure that the decision to build a fence on one border but not another is permissible to someone. I am sure that those who made the “personal choice” to walk past the injured man on the side of the road felt that this was in some way, warranted. But if you noticed, they were used as the example of how NOT to be in the bible, as the “Good Samaritan” is held up as the person that not only made a “personal choice”, he made the right one.
Everyday we are forced to make “personal choices” in regards to every aspect of life. But the problem is that the majority of those choices are in fact not personal, they affect too many people to be so seemingly innocuous. A “personal choice” to eat a fiber rich cereal as opposed to say, Captain Crunch, is a choice that is indeed personal. But to turn someone away because they don’t fit some sort of criteria is by no stretch of the imagination a “personal choice”. Last time I checked, good “personal choices” weren’t being reported in the New York Times. Choices made that adversely affect a huge number of people are.
Mrs. Faber said that this did not hurt her business. That is, again, a load of landscaping manure. My conservative Republican 74 year old mother was disgusted, and has told everyone she knows about this incident. She even wrote them a letter. I did too. This woman cannot comprehend the business that will now not come her family’s way because of “personal choice”. She has no way of gauging the damage that has been done.
Once again, the Christian value system has been hijacked by people that are bigots, biased, intolerant and haven’t got a clue what Jesus died for. They have no idea that defending your beliefs means being gracious, inclusive, kind, compassionate. Why is it that the most vocal “Christians” are the ones screeching about war, controlling other people’s rights, wanting their religious icons and idols all over the place, and bashing people over the head with the good book? Why do they get the focus when there are so many people, good, grounded, wonderful Christian people who do a thousand good things for people every day? I guess that must be what the Muslims are thinking. Why is it that the Jihadists are always in the news? The extremes are always held up as the example of something we don’t understand. Much like the extreme homosexuals that love to parade, party, and wear bottom-less chaps. But the truth is, the majority of gays and lesbians are just everyday people who want to do everyday things with their family.
They want to work.
They want to play.
They want to socialize.
They want to grocery shop.
They want to landscape their yard.
And what they get is some self-righteous, arrogant extremists inflicting their bad choices on others.
The KKK did as you are doing, Garden Guy. They hide their bias, their cruelty and their intolerance behind a cross. But what an abhorrent thing to do! To use the symbol of sacrifice for others, the symbol of grace and agape love and benevolence for such vicious, selfish “personal choices”.
Be honest. At least be that. At the very minimum, do not taint our faith anymore than it has already been tainted by those wishing to use Christianity for their own selfish purposes. My brother, my spiritual mentor, who died this year after a 6 year struggle with ALS said it best. He said that the greatest obstacle to Christianity is Christians. I see that this, once again, has been proven to be all too true.
(submitted to the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle letters to the editor)
I know many people who make choices, “personal choices”, based on the movement of their hearts. People who have chosen to stop consuming animals, people who have decided to foster children or become missionaries, people who have decided to join Doctors Without Borders or to run to Darfur to help in anyway that they can. I know about “personal choice”. But when you make a “personal choice” that negatively affects other people, you cannot hide behind this alleged “heart choice” or behind religion. You have to recognize that you are not standing on moral ground, you are standing under the lynching tree, next to the hobbling mallet, next to the torturer, you are standing in front of the jail house door, unjustly mandating how others are treated.
The Garden Guy Company in Houston Texas discriminates. Do they have a right to? Of course, it is a free country. However, do not hide behind my bible. In my bible it says to love all, worship one. It says that God has the final call on all judgment. It says love your neighbor. It says loving those that love you is easy; it’s loving those that affect you adversely, that hate you, that’s hard.
A hard enough job without the added responsibility to judge others as well.
So when Mrs. Faber states that her husband is making a “personal choice” to not do landscaping work for homosexuals, I say, that’s a crock.
A crock of cowardice and ignorance.
It takes courage to swallow your pride, to put aside the earthly societal constrictions placed upon us by each other, and look to what God instructs us to notice, to care about.
The inner person.
The inner person has no color.
No sexual orientation.
The inner spirit is to be our focus. To fixate on anything else is a cop out. To spit vile epithets in defense of categorical sexism, racism, bigotry and discrimination, and claim that these are “personal choices” are as ludicrous a statement as one could possibly utter. I am sure that the teenage boys that attacked and sodomized the Mexican boy in Houston felt that they had some inalienable right to make that “personal choice”. I am sure that people that refuse to hire women who might get pregnant or single mothers feel they have some unassailable right to hire whomever they choose. I am sure that the decision to build a fence on one border but not another is permissible to someone. I am sure that those who made the “personal choice” to walk past the injured man on the side of the road felt that this was in some way, warranted. But if you noticed, they were used as the example of how NOT to be in the bible, as the “Good Samaritan” is held up as the person that not only made a “personal choice”, he made the right one.
Everyday we are forced to make “personal choices” in regards to every aspect of life. But the problem is that the majority of those choices are in fact not personal, they affect too many people to be so seemingly innocuous. A “personal choice” to eat a fiber rich cereal as opposed to say, Captain Crunch, is a choice that is indeed personal. But to turn someone away because they don’t fit some sort of criteria is by no stretch of the imagination a “personal choice”. Last time I checked, good “personal choices” weren’t being reported in the New York Times. Choices made that adversely affect a huge number of people are.
Mrs. Faber said that this did not hurt her business. That is, again, a load of landscaping manure. My conservative Republican 74 year old mother was disgusted, and has told everyone she knows about this incident. She even wrote them a letter. I did too. This woman cannot comprehend the business that will now not come her family’s way because of “personal choice”. She has no way of gauging the damage that has been done.
Once again, the Christian value system has been hijacked by people that are bigots, biased, intolerant and haven’t got a clue what Jesus died for. They have no idea that defending your beliefs means being gracious, inclusive, kind, compassionate. Why is it that the most vocal “Christians” are the ones screeching about war, controlling other people’s rights, wanting their religious icons and idols all over the place, and bashing people over the head with the good book? Why do they get the focus when there are so many people, good, grounded, wonderful Christian people who do a thousand good things for people every day? I guess that must be what the Muslims are thinking. Why is it that the Jihadists are always in the news? The extremes are always held up as the example of something we don’t understand. Much like the extreme homosexuals that love to parade, party, and wear bottom-less chaps. But the truth is, the majority of gays and lesbians are just everyday people who want to do everyday things with their family.
They want to work.
They want to play.
They want to socialize.
They want to grocery shop.
They want to landscape their yard.
And what they get is some self-righteous, arrogant extremists inflicting their bad choices on others.
The KKK did as you are doing, Garden Guy. They hide their bias, their cruelty and their intolerance behind a cross. But what an abhorrent thing to do! To use the symbol of sacrifice for others, the symbol of grace and agape love and benevolence for such vicious, selfish “personal choices”.
Be honest. At least be that. At the very minimum, do not taint our faith anymore than it has already been tainted by those wishing to use Christianity for their own selfish purposes. My brother, my spiritual mentor, who died this year after a 6 year struggle with ALS said it best. He said that the greatest obstacle to Christianity is Christians. I see that this, once again, has been proven to be all too true.
Comments