7.27.2012

inalienable rights and the pursuit of happiness


     your definition of god has nothing to do with the protection of inalienable rights. rights are not granted by government, churches, communities, or all powerful beings, but rather are innate at the birth of all creations. this nation was founded on a principle of EQUALITY FOR ALL. all is not defined as those who fear god, or live according to traditional definitions, or have blue eyes; all is fully encompassing. there is no qualifier.  I'm certain that even those living beings over whom we have dominion deserve fair and compassionate treatment, if not the right to joyful pursuits until their moment of purpose arises. as this nation has grown and learned and improved we have seen the error of our ways and corrected the path that we have taken. we have made right our wrongs and opened the gates of opportunity and the full pursuit of happiness to all races, genders, and abilities. we have boldly protected the human pursuit of faith. we have sought forgiveness for our foolish interpretation of tradition and restored the rights of men and women that had before been denied their path.  


     i fully respect your right to worship and believe as you so choose and though i disagree i would NEVER take that away from you, yet you actively seek to deny me access to rights that you readily enjoy. how dare you. you, sir, do not emulate the god that you profess to believe in, nor do you live by that first law of heaven, "treat others as you wish to be treated." if this nation is to truly be a "beacon on a hill" and stand up as a model of right and good we must put aside this kind of action, this bigotry and stand for equal treatment of all americans. we are, after all, a nation founded on the idea that "all...are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

     my definition of equality is a world in which the pursuit of happiness is possibility for all people. when it comes to rights - those guarantors of promise, protection, future, and hope -  those rights are not granted by a government, or men, or any other earthly entity, those rights, they are innate. we born free. it is only by our very own societal consent that governments and people strip our neighbors of those freedoms and rights. we are undoubtedly complicit in the restriction of joy by those that would seek their happiness in a manner that we do not consent to. is it our role to define what happiness is? is it our place to take from one being its right, its freedom to live by its own accord? it is not our place to define another's joy. it is certainly not the role of government to restrict, confine, block, or deny my rights or the rights of any other that seeks only their own happiness through no harm to another. 
    
     i should not be discriminated against/denied access to rights based upon any characteristic of my being, nor should anyone else. it is not government's place to impose any belief system on anyone regardless of what that belief system is. it is the role of government to protect all citizens rights, freedoms, and pursuits, as long as those rights and pursuits do no harm to another. you have every right to believe as you do. you have the right to pursue work, housing, marriage, family, retirement, travel, to pay your taxes with your partner, to feel secure, to feel protected under the classifications of the law, to worship your god(s), to educate yourself, to better yourself with no infringements because you are 100% protected by the laws of this land. you enjoy hundreds of rights and privileges that I have been denied because of one singular characteristic that I DID NOT CHOOSE!!!!!!! that restriction, that roadblock on my journey toward happiness, is 100% preventable by adding less than 10 words to our constitution. 


     now, i will fight to the death for you to be able to express your religious beliefs. i will fight for the death for you to be able to worship how you wish. i will respect and defend the practices of your faith. but the moment that someone tells me that despite my willingness to defend their rights, they will not only deny me even the pursuit of those rights they will also spend millions of dollars to insure that the laws of this land prevent me from even being able to to aspire to equality; that my will light fire to my rage. that is undeniably discriminatory behavior, it is, in fact, the definition of bigotry. and that is not acceptable in the America that I believe in. 

     there are many practices that i personally do not condone and cannot stomach, but may the lord strike me down, if someone were to take away the rights of those individuals to be members of the KKK, or to sacrifice animals to worship their god, or the right to bear arms, or the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to be as ugly and hateful as they are, or the right of someone to vote, or due process granted to a certifiable murder... regardless I will stand up and defend those rights. so how dare any american try and take away my pursuit of happiness.

nathan - signature 001

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