Can Oil and Water Ever Mix?

The Herb and Olive Market (HOM) exists to “source and provide Elizabethtown, KY with the highest quality premium olive oil, balsamic vinegars, herbs, spices essential oils, supplements, local honey, pastured meats, cheese, and specialty items available.”  https://www.herbandolivemarket.com/

Will their better taste turn bitter? Or, like Beauty is to the eye of the beholder, will Bitterness be to the palette of the taster?

In April, an HOM employee was told to not return for his next shift. He was wearing a t-shirt the owners said was inappropriate for work — a t-shirt exhorting activism: “Just Us for All: LGBTQ Advocacy creating change through community.”   http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/news/local/groups-plan-to-protest-at-e-town-business/article_d29f1256-9d56-58bf-8c07-8d6cdf8efedf.html

HOM owners explained: Employees represent the business while at work. This t-shirt would be fine after work, off business property. But inappropriate while working at HOM.

HOM’s manager, later fired, defended the employee’s right to wear whatever he wanted. She used her cell phone to record the HOM’s owners. There’s a message there… Amen? The employee considers himself fired, too.

According to the manager’s recording, HOM owners would have been OK with a t-shirt supporting an employee’s church. They were not OK with t-shirts conveying how employess like to have sex.  https://www.louisville.com/content/he-lost-his-job-over-lgbtq-shirt-then-protest-rallied

Enter Heartland Progressive Alliance, the Fairness Campaign, and the ACLU…. co-sponsoring a May 8 protest rally outside HOM. One hundred people came. Advocating a new Fairness Ordinance for Elizabethtown, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. https://www.facebook.com/heartlandprogressivealliance/  AND  https://www.fairness.org/etownprotest/

One of the most compelling quotes I read came in a Letter to the Editor of The News Enterprise e-Edition:

Fairness calls for consideration of everyone. Would a fairness ordinance protect the convictions of business owners, or only the perspectives of the ones demanding fairness for themselves? How fair is it to demand that Christian business owners forget about their beliefs when operating their place of business? ….

Fairness should go both ways, but the push for fairness ordinances around the country does not uphold fairness toward any who disagree. And actually, we should elevate the discussion from fairness to less arbitrary values such as constitutional freedoms, justice and natural law.

As LGBT groups relentlessly press for tolerance, they demonstrate intense intolerance toward any who do not embrace their lifestyle… The push for “fairness” is a demand that no one express anything other than absolute support toward the homosexual lifestyle. In short, it is a demand that anyone in disagreement stay quiet, deny their consciences and relinquish their freedoms. This is the hallmark of tyrannical regimes, not free societies.

This complex issue cannot be solved by a city ordinance. Christians should find ways to befriend and show concern for others with radically different beliefs and community members should seek to live with one another in peace. (Check out “Secrets of an Unlikely Convert” by Rosaria Butterfield.) That does not mean caving in to demands for fairness that are undeniably anything but fair.   http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/our-readers-write-may/article_1f294700-7b92-5f51-a664-b12ba5f20926.html

Remember the t-shirt? “Just Us… for All.”

What say you?

Please post your comments below.

Diana Furr, a.k.a. Abba’s Girl

This blog may have raised questions for you. If you’d like to connect, engage, or get further help from me, you can…  EMAIL me at [email protected]; CALL me at 863-446-1660; or request a complimentary initial CONSULT with me at https://calendly.com/diana-furr.

2 Comments

  • Debbie L says:

    I really liked the Letter to the Editor of The News Enterprise e-Edition and the “Secrets of an Unlikely Convert” by Rosaria Butterfield looks like an encouraging read! Very good dialogue should come out of this.

    • Diana Furr says:

      Me, too. The Letter is a clear and compassionate exhortation to make room in our hearts and conversations for fairness to everyone, not just to those who agree with us. I have also read (and highly recommend) “Secrets of an Unlikely Convert” — a powerful personal testimony of a high-profile woman, a leader in the LGBTQ community, who found freedom from her homosexual lifestyle through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. And how the loving support of His servants, one in particular, helped change her life radically… for the better.

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