Admittedly, I am not in a good mood today. Everyone had a hard time getting up this morning; I found out that the radio station I’ve been listening to on my drive in to work is switching to a Top 40 format, getting rid of my favorite morning talk show; and then I got a link to a news story, several months old, that shows how closed-minded the city I live in is. (Of course the last part was made perfectly clear during the most recent elections, during which the whole place basically turned into some scary, homophobic nightmare.)
This news story, it seems, came at the precise moment to fill my irritability containment receptacle to its capacity and push me over the edge. And while it’s several months old—the situation occurred in November—what it describes is too much for me not to rant about.
It seems there was a billboard installed in our fair (ha!) city, leased by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and taken down about a week later because of numerous complaints that the city received from its residents. And by numerous, they mean around 90. (The current population of Rancho Cucamonga is over 170,000.)
“Wow, that must have been some offensive billboard,” I hear you saying. What despicable acts against humanity was it trying to promote? What vulgar language were the children of the Jewel of the Inland Empire going to be exposed to? What powerful, brainwashing message of hate was it cleverly implanting in our fragile, susceptible brains?
“Everyone who doesn’t believe as we do is going to hell.”
No, sorry, that was on the marquee of a church. Actually, the billboard read: “Imagine No Religion.”
Outrageous, right? I mean who are those Godless, Hell-bound people to tell us that there’s another way of looking at things? And to quote that heretic who once compared himself to Jesus?! Not only should the billboard have been removed as soon as anyone with half a Bible spotted it, but the offenders should have been appropriately punished. Maybe we could have had them burned at the stake in the center of Victoria Gardens – in that area where they put the Christmas tree each year. That way we could accommodate a nice sized crowd and people could do some shopping afterwards. All the food vendors could set up carts to make it more convenient for the masses. Ah, well, maybe next time.
That is, unless they’ve learned their lesson and decided to abandon the idea that freedom of speech will be tolerated in as closed-minded a city as this one. During the November elections, numerous intersections played host to small crowds of people who had nothing better to do with their time but stand on a street corner—sometimes with their small kids in tow—and wave signs of bigotry and hate toward fellow human beings to persuade others into taking certain rights from them. Yes, it’s a glorious city.
So, lie-bearing signs of hate all over the city then were not offensive, and were just a show of support for one side of an issue on the ballot, right?
The freeway I drive to and from work each day has recently acquired a new billboard—two-sided, so you can’t miss it in either direction—that talks about needing Jesus. When I saw it I thought, “Hm. Someone spent money on that.” I wasn’t offended, even though it’s not what I believe and I would prefer to see cute images of cats or bunnies instead. But it would never even occur to me that I should be offended by it. It doesn’t speak to me, oh well, let’s move on. It won’t change my mind (Aha! Maybe I’m not as susceptible to advertisements as we thought!), and it doesn’t scare me. Why should someone’s opinion about what they choose to believe offend me?
And as I don’t think that I have any special powers in this area, I believe others should be capable of the same. If you don’t like to look at something, read something, watch a show, listen to certain music – really, do anything that is available by choice, don’t. Don’t look at a billboard that states something that disagrees with your sensibilities. Don’t go to church if you’re going to be disrespectful toward the people who believe its teachings. But if you’re the one at church, don’t walk out to the first person you see and tell him he’s bad because he wasn’t in there with you. People in general really need to stop being so easily offended by…everything. How about trying to be more accepting instead?
