Well, I've been a resident of California for a little over a week now, and I'd like to share some freethought related views. As regular readers know, I moved here from Utah, and certainly expected California to be much less drenched in religion than the Mormon state. In many ways, it is. In others, though... Well, judge for yourself...
I'm not a regular newspaper reader, but I browsed through yesterday's edition of the Sacramento Bee. A few things rather turned my stomach. One was an announcement about a "Creation vs. Evolution" debate being held at a church this coming Friday. The blurb said something about how a scientific mind can accept creationism. (Baloney.)
The other item is far more prevalent. In an ad for a windshield repair company, I noticed a little Christian fish symbol. And, much to my amazement, I'm seeing it in all kinds of advertisements. Just looking through the telephone book's Yellow Pages has resulted in many such sightings. One of the temporary employment agencies also has it plastered on their ads online.
This really bothers me, because it's discriminatory, and (I'm pretty sure) illegal. Putting a religious symbol in an advertisement for your company (assuming your company is not religion-based) sends a clear message that people of that religion are favored and those who aren't might not be entirely welcome.
Christians, of course, will disagree. They'll say some tripe like, "No, the symbol states that we're Christians, so you can trust us to provide good, honest service." (Baloney.)
But imagine if the symbol were, oh, I dunno... a pentagram. Can you even conceive of the uproar that Christians would make? I don't know if my imagination is good enough to picture it.
Well, at any rate, I think I've found the first target for my activism...
