Things From Which I’d Like to Be Exempt Due To My Religious Beliefs

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Things From Which I’d Like to Be Exempt Due To My Religious Beliefs

Thanks, Kentucky court clerk Kim Davis, for showing me that it’s not just possible but admirable to claim the right to not follow the law or custom, due to my personal religious beliefs. Who better to stand in defense of the sanctity of marriage than someone who only needs one more punch on her Frequent Splitter card to score her fifth divorce free? She stands as an unassailable advocate for the importance of the traditional family because she has one, or at least she did after one of her husbands adopted the twins she’d had out of wedlock.

Given the impunity and assurance with which she, a born-again Christian for lo these…um…four years, I figure that I, as a lifelong Episcopal, have been given permission to claim religious liberty for any damn thing I want, using any spin on theology that I can come up with. Here’s my shortlist.

I should not have to do the family laundry anymore. It says in the Bible that I’m not supposed to worry about the speck of dirt in someone else’s eye until I worry about my own eye-speck, which I’m going to take to mean that I only have to wash my own clothes, water conservation and efficiency concerns notwithstanding.
I should not have to wait in line at the post office. Moses parted the Red Sea, and I want to part the long list of people who stand there with 743 questions, a half-filled out form, and never the right size box. They always hit the window just as 50% of the clerks, meaning the bearded dude who’s always in a bad mood, take a break, thereby lengthening my wait to Biblical proportions. No more. I’m charging to the front of the line like Moses and if you stop me, you must hate America.
I should not have to order in Italian at Starbucks. My pet peeve with this American coffee chain is that we are not in Italy, as the sizes “Venti” and “Grande” would seem to imply. If I want a Venti coffee, I will go to Pope Francis’ local Starbucks and order one. Until that day, I will only order Small, Medium, and Large as I stare at the barista, daring him to correct me. Because, something something something Tower of Babel.
I should not have to scoop up dog poop anymore. There’s a parable about mustard seeds needing the right environment in which to grow, and when poop breaks down it’s fertilizer, so by leaving it in my annoying neighbor’s ivy instead of bagging it and carrying it around like this season’s must-not-have purse, I’m just being a good Christian.
I should not have to listen to overproduced, overhyped music anymore. Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Selena Gomez: I rebuke you. Get out of my airwaves. But first, come here so I can smite you on the forehead with my palm.
I should not have to hear people support a woman who wouldn’t understand the meaning of “Love thy neighbor as thyself” if Jesus himself explained it to her through hand motions and a picture book.

Sing it, Sister Aretha.