Reply #14: No, I'm not assuming everyone is a self-righteous prick. [View All]

What I am assuming is that someone who is NOT a self-righteous religious prick will have no problem wearing her or his religious symbol discreetly so as not to offend ANYONE else. Cross, crescent, I don't give a shit what it is -- keep it private.

I live in Mormon country -- Arizona -- and it's NOT easy to spot an LDS elder a mile away. When they're out on their bicycles spreading the word, sure, then they're fairly obvious. And many a schoolkid knows which of his/her schoolmates are Mormon or Baptist or Catholic simply because they talk about it or because they socialize with others in their congregations. That's normal.

I wear long skirts all the time, and my hair is long, too. I've been mistaken for a fundamentalist on more than one occasion, and usually the mistake leads to anger against me. But long skirts, white shirts, and hair spray are not specifically religious appurtenances the way a cross, a crucifix, or a pentagram is.

Any person who believes their religion is so much more important than the secular society that they absolutely must proclaim that religion even through their children is someone I, as an atheist of Jewish descent, fear.

If you want to, go ahead and call me a bigot. It ain't gonna change my mind. The truth is that I don't give a rat's fucking ass what god, gods, or goddesses anyone believes in, so long as they keep that belief private and don't insist on letting me know that they believe their religion makes them inherently better than I. I do not want "under god" in the pledge of allegiance (even though I personally don't recite it, because I think it's empty propaganda) and I do not want "in god we trust" on our currency, even though the economy is so far down the sewer that we might as well trust in god as in the value of the coin of the realm. Nor do I want hijabs or yarmulkes or any other religious paraphernalia on children in the public schools.

Tansy Gold