This morning as I sat here, cruising through my social media, I came across an article written by Howard Portnoy. It was about a mother, Ann Marie Devaney, who has been locked in a legal battle over two white crosses she had placed at the site her son had been hit and killed by an SUV. We’ve all seen the memorials on the side of highways and other roads, so what was the problem that landed her in a legal dispute? An atheist was offended by the crosses.
While we are making a list of words that should be removed from out language, how about we add ‘offended’? Apparently so many people are so thin-skinned that a mother cannot even memorialize where she lost her son. No one seems able to handle the fact that, maybe, somebody might not believe or think the same way as they do. God-forbid someone actually see something they don’t like and ignore it or walk passed it. Instead, lets waste time and money to bend the world to those that obviously cannot leave their house without being offended about everything they see and hear.
I’m offended that a mother has to be put through this distress because some weak atheist could not handle the thought that not everyone shared their belief. I mean, if their belief is so weak that someone else not sharing it causes a court care, then I think the problem was the atheist. If their day was ruined by looking at the two crosses, then maybe they should have looked in a different direction, or just understood that maybe the reason they were there should have superseded their selfish little world view. Basically, the person infringed on her freedom to believe as she would and to memorialize her son so they could feel better and more secure in their belief.
People need to grow up and get beyond this ‘offended’ stage that society seems to be sinking deeper into. Deal with the fact that we are not all the same and we are not all going to believe in the same way, but that we are all given the freedom to believe as we will. No one has the right to hinder that, otherwise you are not as free as you think.