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Am I In The Wrong?
Dec. 20th, 2011 01:25 pmMy father came into the room to share a story with me he recently heard in the news. The story as he told it to me is as follows:
"A town in Texas had a manger scene put up somewhere. A group in Minnesota sued the city to get the manger scene removed and won the law suit. A few days later the head of the group that sued the Texas town called the mayor and said 'You have to take down the manger," to which the mayor replied 'you come and make me.'" At this point my father had a good belly laugh. "Then they called the Sherriff who replied 'yup, I'll take it down, right around January 15th. No problem.'" My father laughed, smiled, and turned to me waiting for me to laugh.
I did not laugh. I looked at him in horror. To clarify I asked him "So, you're okay with the complete disregard for the law that the mayor of this town had? And the sherriff? Two positions that are supposed to uphold the law?"
The conversation devolved from there. My parents (my mother added herself to the argument) both accused me of simply being argumentative. I maintained that this was a serious issue.
I was, eventually, told to shut up. Maybe not in those words but one of the two people who agreed with one another told me that they were tired of the "pointless argument" and that it needs to stop. Since both people arguing against me were my parents and I live in their house I felt that I had to let it go.
But...I have a HUGE problem with this story and with the mindset that says it's okay.
And for the record, even if it were some scene that I believed in that had been ordered removed by the court I would be horrified by this story. Just saying.
"A town in Texas had a manger scene put up somewhere. A group in Minnesota sued the city to get the manger scene removed and won the law suit. A few days later the head of the group that sued the Texas town called the mayor and said 'You have to take down the manger," to which the mayor replied 'you come and make me.'" At this point my father had a good belly laugh. "Then they called the Sherriff who replied 'yup, I'll take it down, right around January 15th. No problem.'" My father laughed, smiled, and turned to me waiting for me to laugh.
I did not laugh. I looked at him in horror. To clarify I asked him "So, you're okay with the complete disregard for the law that the mayor of this town had? And the sherriff? Two positions that are supposed to uphold the law?"
The conversation devolved from there. My parents (my mother added herself to the argument) both accused me of simply being argumentative. I maintained that this was a serious issue.
I was, eventually, told to shut up. Maybe not in those words but one of the two people who agreed with one another told me that they were tired of the "pointless argument" and that it needs to stop. Since both people arguing against me were my parents and I live in their house I felt that I had to let it go.
But...I have a HUGE problem with this story and with the mindset that says it's okay.
And for the record, even if it were some scene that I believed in that had been ordered removed by the court I would be horrified by this story. Just saying.
