Why have politics and religion been relegated to be discussed only behind closed doors and only among those whom you know share your political beliefs? Do we really need to be patted on the back in that way? Is the foundation upon which our beliefs are built so paper-thin that we must apologize before bringing up an issue of public policy? That catch phrase contains the word “public” in case you hadn’t thought about it in a while.

There are a few things going on here.

1: It takes quite a bit to offend me.

2: If I am offended, I try to keep it to myself.
2a: If what offended me actually is offensive, I will ask questions of the offender as to clarify their position in an attempt to understand their point of view.
2b: If the offender’s position is nonsensical and poorly founded and I am unable to understand their point of view, see 3. If the offender has made a good point and explained to me why I shouldn’t have taken offense, see 4.

3: At this point, one of two things has happened.
3a: The offender has apologized for having offended me and surrendered to the fact that what they said was inappropriate on sufficient grounds and maybe buys me a drink.
3b: The offender has grown increasingly irritated by my constant and fast flowing stream of pointed and oddly poignant questions and comments and has either laughed their way out of a very uncomfortable social situation, or tell me to “cool it”, “calm down” or, in the mid 90s, “take a chill pill”, turn and say, under their breath, “Bitch.”

4: Due to the fact this has never occurred, I cannot give conclusive evidence of the actual course of action should it ever take place.
4a: However, I do look forward to the day it does.

You are no longer neanderthals who cannot understand that another caveman could feel differently than you do, and must therefore chase the other down with a blunt object and beat that poor, smaller caveman bloody. But just before he breathes his last, you’ll see the smile and hear the proud confession that “I don’t care what you think”.

I believe the term for this brave little caveman is martyr. We needn’t be so dramatic in the 21st century.

The word martyr brings me to my next and final point. The Catholic Church has impressively grown in its influence and strength over the last 2,000 years. The omnipresence of The Church was built on the bodies of martyrs. These were people who, just like the thousands and thousands of Jews obliterated during the Holocaust, and the countless number of Blacks killed, raped and stolen in slavery, were robbed of their lives simply because of their otherness.

However, it is INCREDIBLY politically incorrect, as it should be, to make derogatory remarks about Blacks and Jews, based simply on their race and creed. For some reason, Christians and Catholics in particular, have, as of late, become an easy punchline.

CASE IN POINT: Last night, my husband and I, both Catholic, lay in bed flipping channels as a commercial came on during My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a movie I could watch over and over. My husband stopped on Rescue Me, a show I have never liked, based less on the fact of its politics and more on the fact that Dennis Leary just annoys me in general.

I digress. The short scene we caught the end of showed my buddy Dennis and his side-kick, I presume, leaving a school after having just given blood. A priest has walked them out and they are chatting nicely with the priest about wether or not Dennis had eaten enough cookies following his blood donation, or something to that effect.

After the idle banter ends, the nice looking young priest politely turns down their offer to have coffee with them and excuses himself back to his duties inside. That’s when the rather short and incredibly smarmy side-kick says, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Just give that guy a really bad nose job, Elizabeth Taylor’s home number, a house in (Santa Barbara), and you’ve got Michael Jackson on your hands.”

Wow, as a Catholic, I am supremely offended by that. But for some reason the ACLU won’t come out swinging for me or any other Catholic on that one.

I’d like any breathing human being to explain that little political correctness loophole to me, and fast.

The bottom line: Let’s get to the point where we recognize each other as wholly separate human beings when it comes to all beliefs in general. I think we would all agree that lesson we learned in Kindergarten to the effect of, “Respect everyone else,” should go without saying.

Somewhere that darling teacher we all remember from our youths is crying in her pillow because all of her charming, forgiving, open-minded yet forceful, hurt yet resilient, demanding yet apologetic, and ever-faithful five-year-olds have all disappeared from the Earth, only to be replaced by angry, bitter, foot stomping, middle-finger flipping, offended on command (and unable to recover from it) “grown-ups.”

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