I work independantly in technology consulting.
I decided to donated a very good computer software/ to a non-profit because I had upgraded mine and could get a tax credit.

I did not realise that the person I talked to was part of a religious non-profit. She talked about how helping them out with this, they could help the needy by finding resources for families/printing resumes/internet access in thier office.

My life partner came home from work, all he said was “how was your day love”? He went into our home office and did not come back out and say anything else or do anything else.

She stopped talking, picked everything up walked to the door. As soon as she got outside our house she turned to me and told me that we deserved to go to hell and walked to her car. I did not even get a thank you.

She was part of a charity to help the needy? I guess only if you believe in what god or religion they believe in.

So Mr. Republican by default I whole heartedly agree with Robert Sanford. I have has a far better working relationship with people that “respected” but did not discuss thier religious beliefs then people who tried shoving it down like a pill every hour on the hour because it’s their calling to talk about God.

Have a good weekend.
John Bernardo
Tacoma, WA

Christians have been putting up with the free speech of people like you since this country was founded. In my lifetime it’s meant listening to rap music that glorifies crime, violence and rape (actual rape, not the things you liberals imagine are like rape). We can’t turn on a television without implied (or actual) sex scenes, crude jokes, drugs use and heavy alcohol use.

Do we call lawyers every time it happens? No. Of course not, because it’s not illegal and because we have spines. You liberals, on the other hand, are whiny invertebrates who don’t understand the constitution or the implications it has on your supposed ‘rights’.

Free speech has very few limitations. The obvious ones are slander/libel, incitement to violence and conspiracy to commit a crime. But religious speech isn’t covered in any of those, so it’s still free.

And don’t worry about me and the Muslims. I can hold my own just fine, as can most Christians. You see, unlike liberalism, there is substance to what we believe. Christianity changes lives for the better. Islam, secularism/liberalism, etc. don’t have the same effect.

“[Y]our right to natter on about what you believe ends at my ears” Actually, it doesn’t. There’s no right in the US Constitution to “freedom from religion.” You have to put up with my free speech for the same reason I have to put up with yours. And at least I go to the trouble of checking into things before I say them.

You’re already protected from job discrimination based on your religion (or lack thereof). This law goes way beyond discrimination and stifles free speech of employees. I’ve read this law and it appears to me to be virtually limitless in its scope. “Any communication” can mean just about anything. If an employee mentions that he’s going to church tonight or sets a Bible on his desk suddenly every other employee would have the right to sue the employer.

“My right to the private exercise of my beliefs trumps your right of free speech every time.” Nobody is taking away your right to exercise your beliefs when they talk about theirs. Why are you so insecure about your beliefs? Does every little mention of Christianity shake your belief system to its foundation? Why are you so whiny?

“[D]on’t you dare use job retention as away [sic] to keep your little congregation in the seats.” I don’t even understand what you’re trying to say. Are you saying that Christians have somehow turned the workplace into a church? Probably not, that’s beyond absurd and I’m sure an obviously well educated liberal like yourself wouldn’t make a comment that ridiculous. Is that a threat of some kind? It’s an empty one at best. If it weren’t, why would this legislation be needed. I guess I’ll chalk it up to the mindless babbling of a senseless liberal.

I think you have your rights completely turned around. Your supposed right to freedom from religion infringes on my right to the free exercise of my religion.

“What you propose is mental rape; creating a relationship by force that would not exist by choice.” You liberals are the whiniest bunch of losers I’ve ever seen. And your use of terms like ‘mental rape’ trivializes the devastating victimization that actual rape victims go through. Your little discomfort from listening to someone talk about their religion is nothing compared to lifetime of emotional torment actual rape victims experience. Don’t try to elevate it to the level of pain they live with, you whiny twit.

Seems to me if Jesus was the real deal you wouldn’t need to use people’s job security as vice in order to make them hear the “good news.”

I once knew a coffee shop owner who required her staff to a company meeting–so she could pitch them on her Mary Kay products. They all quit, every single one of them. And they were right to do so, because this employer abused her power over them, misled them and wasted their time in an act of dishonesty. It is one thing to offer the “good news” to someone, it is quite another thing when it becomes required for your continued employment or coercion for social acceptance.

It is disrespectful, at the very least. If you want to proselytize your religion, you would be better off if you didn’t have to threaten people into listening to you first. Is that what Jesus would have done? He was the threatening type, was he?

I think your rant is offensive to the very idea of Christianity.

Or an Atheist.

And you had to sit there while the person you worked for bloviated on and on about why you should believe what they believe.

That’s how non-believers feel most of the time.

And employers don’t have any right to what their employees believe– they are only renting your behavior for eight hours a day. They can’t have your brain, too. Just your behavior.

You as an employer may have free speech, but your right to natter on about what you believe ends at my ears; and if I am your employee I have lost the freedom to walk out (at the risk of my job).

My right to the private exercise of my beliefs trumps your right of free speech every time.

If you believe that much in free speech for yourself, how can you deny it to me?

If you want to spread what you believe, start ringing doorbells; don’t you dare use job retention as away to keep your little congregation in the seats.

What you propose is mental rape; creating a relationship by force that would not exist by choice.

Robert Sanford
Seattle, WA

http://i.feedtacoma.com/chrism39/crazy-5-views/

5 Views is disputing global warming. I called him nutty and for that he finally blocked me and called me a troll. For some reason, this strangely satisfies me. Is troll the worst thing you can be called on the internet? Maybe I will make up another screen name and email and bother him some more, maybe I am crazy and have to much time on my hands.

This “strangely satisfied” her? I guess that’s what she was after the whole time. Maybe to her it’s a badge of honor to obnoxious and disruptive. Now I regret responding to her as if she was making serious comments when she was just trying to cause problems.

And maggie did try to post under another name. I didn’t allow it. But I guess that settles the issue maggie raised about herself in her post.

Some of the other comments on maggies blog post are pretty amazing. Some of them assume that they know how I have come to hold my beliefs. I’m pretty certain that I’ve never met these people and I know I that I haven’t made any public statements about how my beliefs were formed. So how could they possibly know? Are they ‘psychic’?

It’s amazing how in the same breath they can criticize someone for not checking the facts and also jump to unfounded conclusions. Does that qualify as hypocrisy?

And to anyone who lives in this area and suffered from the snowfall last week let me pose a few questions. How often is the weather forecast wrong about tomorrow or next week and yet we listen to these guys about the next century? Are we even able to change the weather on a global scale considering the impact of the sun’s radiation on a system as complex as Earth’s ecosphere? Should we be spending billions in tax dollars and billions more in the private sector caused by ‘green’ regulations when there is any question at all about whether we’re changing the weather? Are you going to let them redefine what they’re saying by calling it ‘global climate change’ so that they don’t have to face the embarrassment of the facts that piled up several inches in this area?

Isn’t it time you questioned ‘global warming’?