MY LIFE

(h/t Pam’s House Blend, where there’s add’l info)

Check this out…. a Brookstone employee in Massachusetts is at work.  A visiting manager from another store comes in and mentions her upcoming wedding.  Employee asks “Where’s he taking you on your honeymoon?”   The woman corrects him and clarifies her fiancee is another woman.   Employee is a Christian and finds this offensive, but (per his words) he changes the subject, but the woman brings it up a few more times during the day.   Employee tries to share his opinion that he thinks “homosexuality is bad stuff”, and wants her to stop bringing it up.   He gets (properly) fired for it.

So, in a casual work situation, where employees often DO mention dates, weddings, and other personal information, why should GLBT personnel be expected to keep such things quiet, while straight employees are able to prattle on and on about the wedding, the caterers, the flowers, the honeymoon, and blah-blah-blah?   She wasn’t talking about the details of her sex life, but her upcoming wedding.

As mentioned over at Pam’s, it would be interesting to hear the manager’s side of the story.

As the Brookstone’s letter of dismissal makes clear, same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts.  The manager wasn’t issuing opinions about anything, but merely stating the facts of her upcoming marriage.   And throughout his video he uses air-quotes and refers to the manager’s “so-called female fiancee” and “so called wedding”.   He is clearly bigoted on the matter.

The reality is that nobody gives a shit if a Christian is “offended” by the fact of gay and lesbian people getting married.   Same-sex marriage is legal in some states, and it really doesn’t matter what some people think.   Just like it doesn’t matter what they think about all night drinking parties, or going to the movies,  or mixed bathing (men and women swimming in the same pool or same part of the river, or at the same beach)*, or other things that people do in everyday life.  Christians are entitled to believe whatever they wish on the matter, but unless they are asked their opinions, they don’t really need to go spouting off about things that don’t pertain to them.

The proper response to someone’s excitement about their upcoming wedding is “Congratulations” or some other generic well-wishing.   EVEN IF YOU THINK IT IS WRONG FOR YOURSELF, you have no basis for thinking something is wrong for someone else.  And you absolutely have no reason to volunteer an unsolicited opinion about something that does not concern you.  Just like if you hear about a mixed race couple getting married and you don’t like the idea of mixed-race marriages (and we know there are some who still have a problem with it, for some weird reason); you just wish the couple well and go on about your business.

And, clearly, if this is a co-worker or supervisor or whatever — anybody you need to continue working with on a regular basis — you keep your personal opinions to yourself and focus on the work, rather than getting all frustrated thinking about someone else’s private life.

When you hear about a straight couple getting married, your mind doesn’t instantly flash pictures of the couple having sex, or how they do it, or what kink they might be into.   So why do Christians go there when it’s a gay or lesbian couple?   Why do some Christians seem to think GLBT unions are just about sex?   Shame on Christians for having vulgar minds.  In almost any marriage, gay or straight, the sex is only a tiny fraction of the relationship — the rest of the time it is shared values and goals, common interests, and a myriad other things that make the couple compatible, for whatever reasons they find important.  It’s nobody else’s business to decide if it is right or wrong.

i truly hope that this guy gets his head out of his ass and realizes he doesn’t have any sort of wrongful termination case.  He fucked up and was rightfully dismissed.

* yes, I could have lost my credentials if the North Texas district officials found out my wife and I, along with the pastor and his wife, drove from Austin to Galveston to swim at the beach!  Galveston is in the South Texas District of the Assemblies of God, so it was unlikely any of our own church folk would have seen us swimming together in public. The Assemblies of God were very much against “mixed bathing”.