Here’s something about me:
I don’t care very much about what you believe in, particularly: God, Jesus, and/or Allah; Elvis is alive; Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone; the moon is made of green cheese; all of the above or none. It’s not my place to care and frankly, I have more important things to worry about.
I respect the beliefs of others, and I expect and demand the same respect. Just because I don’t believe as you do doesn’t mean I deserve to have your beliefs shoved down my throat. And the stuffing of certain extremist-religious right beliefs down the national throat is rampant these days: the current most-obvious example is the Washington Post story about pharmacists being allowed to NOT prescribe birth control AND to refuse to forward the prescription.
Many of us are justifiably enraged about the infringement of our rights this represents. What’s been troubling me, though, is I can’t figure out WHY these objectionist people would go into pharmacy at all.
Prescribing birth control pills will be a regular and frequent task in a pharmacy. You don’t sign up to be an accountant if your religious beliefs forbid handling money. You don’t enlist in the military if you can’t for any reason countenance the idea of killing.
I strongly oppose discrimination on religious grounds, but if your religious beliefs make you unqualified to perform the requirements of the job, you shouldn’t get the job. Period. This isn’t a minor adjustment, like coming in on off-days to make up religious time off, this is a major requirement DEFINING the job of a pharmacist.
If you don’t like pharmaceutical birth control, that’s your personal choice. You can write letters to your representative, protest (and watch me protest for birth control right across the street from you), but while these pharmaceuticals are LEGAL, it is a pharmacist’s JOB to fill a prescription.
It’s as simple as that, and I truly cannot believe we as a country are entertaining LEGISLATION to cater to these dogma freaks.
