Free to Be You and Me

Colorado master baker Jack Phillips is at the center of a Supreme Court case.

Would someone please remind me what's so great about America? Oh right, all our freedom. I forgot for a minute. It's easy to see why, since freedom is in evidence in smaller and smaller amounts every day.

Like parking. You can't just park anywhere you like; someone else has decided exactly where and when already. If you park with even one tire over the line of the parking space even an inch, you get a ticket for $75! At least I did here in sleepy little Freeport, Maine, on a side street with little traffic. It's not like I was blocking a major thoroughfare and causing a bottleneck that would result in death and injury to countless Freeporters. No, not at all. Still, the parking police patrol our downtown, just aching to issue a citation. But that's peanuts when compared to the lack of freedom of thought that characterizes our nation. It's almost as bad as an Orwellian novel.

Personally, having been surrounded by them almost since birth, and so, like someone who grew up with pit bulls and actually finds them adorable whereas others think the breed is abominable and should be exterminated, I have never understood the people who have any sort of problem with gays. Still, I think they should be allowed to have their thoughts and opinions. In fact, they will still have them even if it's against the law, since you can't legislate what goes on inside someone's brain. At least not yet. But almost.

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will be deciding whether or not a master baker (see photo above) has the right to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple when it violates his religious beliefs. It seems so obvious to me: Hey, the guy doesn't want to bake your cake, go to another baker. In fact, why not go to a gay baker and give that guy the business? But instead, they sued the religious baker to make it a law that everyone has to think gays getting married is okay, or at least act like they do. Where's the freedom?

My family is currently overflowing with gays, male and female, and it's not an issue for me. Hey, do whatever you want, just don't make me do it too. But insisting that everyone else must accept their lifestyle, and even applaud it, perpetuates the exact opposite of freedom.