Business as Usual

Sarcastic title again, my sweets, because of this piece of "writing".

I do understand that the situation is different in Northern Ireland*, but... the arguments in this piece are just too angering (and so, I get to growl here, because a tweet wouldn't be enough to make me feel better).

So many things are being mixed up and misrepresented in this paper that it's annoying.

First, either people are in business or they're in religion, but since there are sooooooooooo many varieties of superstitions religions, no one's allowed to say "Mine is the true one. The only one!". Of course, people say that, and believe it, but it's wrong - and Zeus will want to have a word with you if you disagree that it's wrong.
[Checks to see that the Sarc font is on.
It is.
Firmly.]

I'll blame my reaction on my education (that was extremely open-minded and tolerant) and on my addictions to science fiction (where there can be a better, more tolerant and loving world in the future).

If your job is to make cakes... you make cakes. I'm not even going to attempt to dive into the local laws around the globe and what they say in each "village" or even on each "street".

If you make a living selling cakes, you take an order, you make the cake, you get the money, and you give your customer the cake with a smile. You can rant and growl in the kitchen, at the pub, at home, on Fakebook (sic), Twatbook (sic, coz I haven't recovered from the Twitter profile fiasco) or any Yahellgroup or whatever, but you do your job. Full stop.

Being religious doesn't give anyone the right to get some special treatment - all the more if the exception you want for yourself is causing another human being to be treated differently.

It's not about a business and its right to be religious at work. It's all about bigots wanting to get a free pass to tell another human being "Sorry, Cupcake, you're not like us. You're inferior. You're barely human according to my book, and I feel that I have the right to treat you like a second class citizen. If people don't look too closely, I'll even try to treat you like shit because you're not like me.".

The person who wrote that paper uses the example of feminists being forced to make a cake for anti-choice people. Fine.

I'm a feminist. I would cuff the first anti-choice wanker who'd tell me how to live my life. However... if I were a baker and anti-choice patrons came to my shop, I'd take care of them just like any customers..............

Well, okay... almost. I can well picture myself telling them that their "theme" isn't something that I've ever made (and that would be true!), and I'd propose to charge them a bit more - let's say 10% (truly, without any hidden agenda on my part, I feel that if you make something that's not on your usual list of activities, but you agree to give it a try, you deserve a bonus).

If they agreed to the extra and I agreed to the order, I'd make them any kind of cake (no funny trick or anything - just doing my job).

I'll go a step farther, if the anti-choice people gave me a slice of their cake, I'd eat it. The same goes for neo-Nazis (and Merlin knows they make me sick).

Incidentally, I mention Nazis because some NI politicos have been comparing the people who wanted the "gay" cake and the ones who support them as Nazis or the PC Gestapo [We need to make these plonkers understand that the first to mention the Nazis loses the right to add anything to the debate and is kindly invited to go take roots on the Naughty Step].

It's not about politics, equality or being in 2014 in a country that's NOT a theocracy.

It's always about bullying.

The bullies want a free pass to be nasty, but they don't want anyone to tell them that they're being mediaeval, intolerant, bigoted, petty, mean and cruel. If you do point the finger to show the world that they're bullies, they'll point back at you and yell that you're being intolerant (that's still Bullying 101).

The last paragraph of the paper shows it well: 'Seeking to compel others to conform to approved cultural values is a totalitarian impulse. And it derives from a smug, corpulent complacency that assumes the right to have your cake, whatever the chosen topping, and eat it.'

"Totalitarian"? What about the people who refused WORK? How open-minded are they? 

"Smug"? Bloody hell, we're talking about a cake with Sesame Street characters on top: how is that a problem? Oh, yes! There's the idea that these (imaginary!) characters stand for a non-heterosexual couple. And there's the text "Support Gay Marriage"... Why shouldn't a marriage be gay? Oh! You mean that adjective not as "joyful", but as "non-heterosexual" again... Oh, yes, love is such an awful thing! Perhaps we should go back to things as they were when parents decided who their children would marry. Or even better, decide who can get married and that exclusively in an heterosexual relationship (if we push that a tad farther, people who can't have children aren't needed in the gene pool and should be disposed of, as they've got no slaves nothing to give to the Church [Winning denomination to be announced after a Crusade - or to be just the highest bidder]. Oddly, that solution reminds me of something... about seventy years ago, I think. Not giving any name. Nope.

Human rights aren't privileges to be given to a chosen few. It's a right for all.

No baker has the right to tell a patron 'You're not human in my book, off you fuck.'.

What's next? A chemist telling a woman he doesn't want to sell her a box of Plan B? Oops. My bad!

*: I do understand that things are different in Northern Ireland, but from outside, it looks as if they're sometimes trying to outdo their brothers in the south in the Bigotry Department. I must say that I was shocked that the local politicos didn't vote to allow equal marriage. This really reeks of Rome somehow.

To ALL Earthlings: Letter about Equal Marriage

My dear fellow Earthlings,

most of you are decent people, and a few are even quite awesome. When it comes to marriage, you don't care if it's Paul and Jenny getting married or Paul and John or Jenny and Susan - because it's none of your business, and unless you're invited and you've got to buy a new suit or a new dress (and a hat and gloves and new shoes), you basically don't care.

Now... to the happy bunch of cavemen who think that they can go and demonstrate and sign petitions about marriage equality, I'll ask you who died and made you kings (and queens)?
What is it to you? I mean, you personally - what does it change in your life if Paul and John or Jenny and Susan get married? Answer: Nothing. Bloody nothing. Fuck all.
You know what? Your entire tribe is behaving like adult bullies (and you often drag your offspring to demonstrations, which shows you're irresponsible).
If you think you have the right to prevent Paul from marrying John and Jenny from marrying Susan, then why-oh-why don't Paul, John, Jenny and Susan have a say about your getting married, eh? Because you're "normal"? Piece of news, Cupcake: nothing is "normal". There are things you do that are barmy according to other people, and things that they find normal that you'd find not normal, and all that because we're all different.
If you don't want other people to say that you - let's call you Birgit [and if one does follow the European news, there's some clue in that particular name] - cannot marry "Wilhelm" just because he's blue-eyed, then you cannot, my dear Birgit, go out and demonstrate against Paul/John and Jenny/Susan because you feel entitled to do so, because you think that their couple doesn't deserve to tie the knot officially because they're not a pseudo-sacrosanct man-woman couple, and because you think that their love is not as good as yours.
Basically, we're back to "who died and made you king"?
You see, Birgit, I don't want to interfere with your life, and you've got no right to interfere with mine or with Paul's, John's, Jenny's or Susan's.

The two cherries on that sad cake are that you've got religion being mixed in the topic, and then your sorry lot adds children, too.
First, religion? Which one? Who said that your religion was the only one? Here's another free piece of news: you're not the only one who believes in Zeus or the Tooth Fairy or the Great Whatever. Religions were invented because bipeds were afraid of their own shadows when they left their caves (and it's a bloody good - and easy - way to control the scared, brainwashed sheeple). So, please, stop shoving your beliefs and fright down the throats of decent people, who merely want to live a quiet life and share some love before Death comes to pay them a visit.
Then, children... So, according to you, it's better for children to rot in sordid orphanages than to entrust them to Paul&John or Jenny&Susan. Because heterosexual couples are so much better. I'm not saying that homosexual couples are perfect, but if one takes into account the number of Kafkaesque hoops they've got to go through whilst they navigate through awful and nasty bumpf, one has to think that Paul&John and Jenny&Susan really, really, really want to rescue an orphan and give him or her a good home and a good family.
You'll have to admit that a lot of bipeds have children a bit by chance - a hazardous consequence of sex that they decide to keep (I won't mention the few nut-cases in your lot who have as many children as they can spawn because they believe that's what their god wants: the Earth has other plans for these careless twats).
So, Birgit (yea, you, again, Dearie), when you say that a child needs a mother and a father, I'll say that you really don't care about the children (because monitoring all new adoptions - and I do mean all - would create jobs, and that would be good - except that governments usually don't want to give money to protect children and educate them properly: buying weapons and paying generals is more important in their books).
You see, Birgit, some children have lost one parent (that happened to me), others only have a mother or a father by a twist of Fate, and others have parents who divorced and cannot stand each other and made sure that the children would never see the other parent. There are millions of possibilities, and no two families are the same. Once more, you're clinging to a kind of idealized version of life; a pretty script that you could re-write if need be, but, Birgit dearest, life isn't a film (though you'd probably fail at that, too - no, wait! You are a failure in humanity because your narrow-mindedness is making you judge people who don't know you, and who were kind enough to not judge you in the first place). I'm not going to be kind and nice with you because bullying must be fought - always.
Birgit dearest, you have no right to demonstrate in order to shout on telly that you're against Paul/John and Jenny/Susan getting married, because it's against your Book (there's no frigging god; stop being afraid and stop being a pest), because it'd hurt children if those arrogant homosexual couples were allowed to adopt these cherubim (how many orphans have you rescued from orphanages, Birgit? Um? How many?), and because marriage is only for procreation. Don't deny it, girl, I heard you being interviewed. Does it mean that old people can no longer get married because they can no longer have children? Does it mean that couples composed of people who caught viruses or had accidents or whatever and who, in consequence, are still young but can no longer have children cannot get married?
No.
You're exclusively targeting homosexual couples because you have a brain the size of a pea and you've got no heart - oh, and you're an adult bully.

So, Birgits of the world, you and your male equivalent can go to your hell and roast there for all eternity (which is just a figure of speech, since there's no hell, and all we've got is this life, which is why I'm so angry when I hear your lot working against love and marriage - whilst you can tie the knot with whoever you want).
Go do some charity work, bake cakes, stop wars, write poetry, create a new variety of roses, or whatever, but stop being pains in the neck who think they're got the right to bully others.
Merlin! You make me feel like a crèche headmistress who's teaching babies how to behave in society.
Grow up, and mind your own business!
Nothing is being taken from your lives, so let others be happy. Ta. Muchly.

Love,
Dru