Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

 

Joe

Alliance Defending Freedom

Paid for by Alliance Defending Freedom  · 

You don’t have to share Jack Phillips’ beliefs to think he shouldn’t be punished for them.

For more than 10 years, activists and Colorado officials have relentlessly targeted Jack for his Christian faith. First, they tried to force him to create a custom cake celebrating a same-sex wedding—a case he won at the Supreme Court. Now, they’re trying to force him to create a custom “gender transition” cake. And if the current case is dismissed, the plaintiff has threatened to place another cake order the next day, and start another lawsuit.

When will it end?

We pray it ends this year. The Supreme Court will soon rule in 303 Creative v. Elenis—another ADF case challenging the same law that’s being used to persecute Jack. We’re hoping for a strong ruling that restores free speech for everyone, in all 50 states. Even Colorado. 

Sloan Bashinsky

I'm a lawyer. I belong to no political party. Once upon a time I lived in Boulder, Colorado, which had large New Age and Eastern religion communities, and heaps of Democrats. In olden times in Alabama, I saw signs in restaurants saying, "We retain the right to refuse service to anyone." Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think that mostly had to do with whites refusing to serve blacks. I think the Colorado man ought to be allowed to sell wedding cakes to people whose religious beliefs match his own. I think it was when I lived in Boulder that I learned about a mythical New Age tribe called the Fukawis, who were always getting lost and gathering in a circle and sitting down and holding hands and chanting, "Where in the fu*k are we? Where in the fu*k are we?" I came to view the Democrats, in the main, as the Fukawis. And I came to view the Republicans, in the main, as reincarnations of the white Roman Catholic Inquisition in Europe, which was why the Founding Fathers put freedom of speech and religion in Amendment 1, US Constitution. Perhaps some day the Democrats and the Republicans will take Jesus' advice and take the beams out of their own eyes, for a change?

Joe

The God Conclusion

Buy The God Conclusion: https://leonardbooks.net

OR

the audiobook: https://www.audible.com/.../The-God-Conclusion.../B0BL25JCT4

Sloan Bashinsky

If there were no God, would the topic ever come up?
I imagine any atheist who spent some time in my skin, would be convinced God exists, and perhaps wish it were not so. As might any believer who lived in my skin a while.

Poetic Outlaws 

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.” 

― Neil Gaiman

Sloan Bashinsky

The World's Greatest Failure (2001) 

 

I know what it is to love fully,

have my heart broken by death

and by loved ones' rejections,

Over and over again,

so I can love even more. 

 

I know what it is to be engulfed in pain, 

Awash in evil, 

Terrified, enraged, despaired, 

Believing God has again forsaken me, 

Then be given the truththat again makes me free. 

 

I know what it is to doubt, 

Be lost and wandering 

time and time again, 

Then be rescued yet again 

and my faith grows deeper. 

 

I know what it is to blindly trust, 

Then be destroyed by betrayal 

time and time again, 

Until I trust only God. 

 

I know what it is 

to have much 

and be completely of this world, 

Then have it all taken away 

and be in the world but not of it. 

 

I know what it is 

to fail in this world,a 

nd fail and fail and fail: 

The world's greatest failure, 

I can serve only God. 

 

I know what it is to give 

and give and give and give; 

I cannot stop giving 

because giving is receiving. 

 

I know what it is 

to explain God 

time after time after time again. 

Something demands I keep explaining: 

Maybe someone will listen, 

Maybe me.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com