Boycotting the City of Black Jack, Missouri

How disgusting is THIS?

I got my issue of People magazine in the mail yesterday and started reading it. In this issue, dated 27 March 2006, there is an article on page #93 entitled "Get Married or Move Out", about this rather rigid and uptight town called Black Jack, Missouri. Two different families, the Shelltrack-Lovings and the Hyde-Jarrells, could not either rent a home or get a permit to do so because they were told that they did not meet the definition of a family. If they'd just get married, it would be fine to move in.

Gasp! How appalling is that? What kind of nuts live in this gods-awful town to pass some sort of ordinance in 1998 that "allows no more than three 'unrelated' individuals to share a single residence". Oh, goodness. What the hell kind of place is that?!

So. Apparently the whole thing of freedom in the United States and the whole big deal about religion and state not mixing, is a total pack of lies (as I have long suspected anyway, as religion shows up all over the place in things that are state or government run and clearly the insane Christians get top billing - this is obvious. And where "decent" morals seem to have run over everything. I think we are missing the whole point of some of the most basic tenets of what should have been a great country to live in).

Luis and I are married. Not in the eyes of the law and not in the eyes of any religion, other than mine. (And you have seen what a devout follower of anything I am, because I make a lousy sheep... Yes, insulting as that sounds, I look at many religiously devout people as sheep, blindly following the dictates of some other human that scribed down what he thought was God speaking [what hubris that takes!] and somehow managed to actually get it accepted by heaps of other people!) Anyway, we have been living together for 16 years (this Wednesday, in fact, is our 16th anniversary), we share our bed with each other, we have a wonderful relationship and we are not legally bound in any way, which allows us to keep our finances totally separate (can you blame him? with the way I spend money? Me, neither!) and be very happy. I'm listed as his beneficiary on everything and he is listed as my beneficiary. We have been to a gazillion weddings together and seen many of them end in divorce. You'll notice ours is still going strong! Hmmm.

And this is a whole town saying no to potential taxpayers because these people aren't in a rush or are at all interested in getting married! They both have kids - one couple has three, the other has two - but they are not a family. This ordinance, by the way, has been created to safeguard communities from fraternities, group homes (?) and crack houses from routinely showing up in areas, which I certainly don't have an issue with prevention of those. I'm not actually sure of what a "group home" is unless they have a problem with Mormons, although I personally see no issue with polygamy if this is what makes people happy. I would have to say that in my mind, however, if one spouse gets to have multiple partners, so does the other... the Mormons seem to feel that only men should have the pleasure of a harem. I want a "hisem", too!

So there it is. I know that entirely too many people will rather violently disagree with me since we are oftentimes victims of the moral world we live in that seems to want to dictate every little detail in the way we live our lives. However, there are still many people who will agree with me and see exactly my point. And they are very likely religious (most people are) and still see that the Church cannot make all of the rules and that what the original religion intended is the right idea, not what man has imposed upon it.

As for the sheep, I say, "BBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"