Religious Freedom And Business As Usual

What's all this pomp and circumstance about Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act? It's all nothing special, just a renewed opportunity for the good, christian people of America, the Midwest in particular, to act with hatred and disdain for their neighbors. After all, what better of a way can there be to make a person whose ethnic background, language, religion, sexual orientation, or perceived disability feel badly about himself than to wait until he orders a pizza, books a wedding, requests medical care, or enrolls in school, than to begin the transaction or service, only to suddenly cease, pulling the rug out from under him, with the announcement that fulfillment of the contract or delivery of the service would, in the case of said client or customer, be abhorrant to God, and therefore not feasible, in any way. If a child is disappointed to the extent of tears, or on the verge of a dangerously high fever, so much the better. Harm to an unbeliever is an enormously effective manner of making the point that "we do not serve your kind in our establishmment", isn't it, dear christians?

Well, you know something, Jesus Freaks? The Satanic Temple of Detroit has an answer for you; it's called Discrimination Transparency. In order for the non-christian world to determine, at a glance, which establishments are in business to make money, rather than to make others unhappy, a petition has been circulated and signed, and will be presented to the representatives of the involved locales, to request that a rider be written into the RFRA laws, requiring businesses which choose to discriminate to warn the population at large, so as to avoid humiliating the targets of christian hate and wasting their time in fruitless endeavors. Anyone who will not serve a member of an ethnic group Jesus does not like will be required to warn everyone by placing a sign on the door or somewhere visible from  outside the establishment, stating the discriminatory intentions. The same will go for any business  intending to marginalize customers and clients who attend the "wrong" church, speak a language  that is unfamiliar, or are sexually oriented in  ways that are useless in basic, old fashioned, christian adultery. People who do not wish to patronize bigots will be able to make educated choices about where to spend their money.

A prototype of the required sign has also been graciously provided, as well. It is pictured below.

Disclaimer: It is understood by the writer that not all christians interpret religious and spiritual teachings as inclusive of hatred and bigotry. This post is only meant to describe those who have wrongly concluded that the world revolves around only themselves and their ilk.

Food Hub: A Project Worth Consideration

Officials in Douglas County Kansas have begun studying the possibilities of starting a food hub in Lawrence, Kansas. Food hubs are distribution centers that showcase and market locally grown foods in an area, and Lawrence Kansas has a lot of potential for a food hub. A food hub would increase the availability of locally grown foods to the area, and it would also increase opportunities for new businesses to start in an area that is mostly farms.

Food hubs in urban areas sometimes have problems with lack of land for agriculture, which is why Douglas County, Kansas appears an ideal location for such a business. Lawrence has the KU campus, and is very much a college town, yet it is surrounded by farms. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has given Douglas County a grant to study the feasibility of a food hub in Lawrence which would include Douglas County and fifteen surrounding counties.