At some point this year you have a post-head-trauma epiphany and decide to open a 70s theme donut shop in Pittsburgh’s Strip District and call it Peace Love & Tiny Donuts with the slogan “Feed Your Inner Hippie.” See, your plan is to profit off the “dilusional [sic], uneducated and morally bankrupt” liberals who think they’re supporting a cool, fun, small business run by nice folks. And you know what? That’s a plan. Perhaps not the most ethical, but it would totally work.

Except you blogged about it on your public blog.

Then when people called you out on your weirdo marketing lies, you posted the following:

Thursday, October 1, 2009
It has come to my attention…

A young woman came into my shop today and shared with me that some people have read my blog and now are busy doing what they can to damage me and my family by telling others that I am a horrible person. Apparently, my viewpoint and opinions have been interpreted as not endorsing their lifestyle choices or their political views. Although I don’t look to offend anyone, I find it ironic that many people who stand under the banner of “acceptance”, are in their own nature, unwilling to accept anyone who disagrees with them. Does anyone else find that ironic?

I make the best donuts I know how, and people have gone to Urbanspoon and given our product a negative rating because they are unhappy with my opinion. One person said that I should keep my opinion to myself so that nobody would know what I thought! Yet these same people who cry out for legitimacy, attack anyone who doesn’t agree with their positions and choices. That to me is the epitome of hypocrisy. I’m not ashamed of who I am, although I admit I am a work in progress. I will not couch my faith or my person-hood for any reason, especially not to sell a donut.

I have been kind and respectful to everyone that has come into my shop. Not just to sell them something, but I try to be the best version of myself that I can be. I take being generous seriously, along with all of God’s commandments. I try to love people and hate sin. Most of what I write about is the struggle to do that without a ton of human debris in my wake. Everyone wants love and peace. The problem is with SIN. I didn’t invent sin (although my wife might joke that I am trying to perfect it), nor did I define sin. I just happen to believe like most people, that there is a better life to be lived if we avoid sin. That requires a knowledge of what IS sin, and my source for that is the Bible. If that makes me the scorn of people and hated… then I say what Martin Luther said… I can not recant the truth. I would welcome the chance to defend my ideas or my faith but only two people have asked me to explain my writings. Others are taking some paragraphs and sending them to others in an attempt to amplify one of my musings. I have a saying for people who try to demonize others by focusing on one attribute or expression… “you have to walk over mile of balance and reason to have that opinion”.
Posted by Ron Razete at 6:37 AM 0 comments

And then delete the whole thing. (Formerly located at ronrazete.blogspot.com, but in the spirit of Martin Luther I will keep it un-recanted here.)

Well, you’re a cowardly liar, and you really can’t be shocked when folks catch on to you. What is your next move? My hypothesis: blame the meanie liberals for not buying your bullshit instead of your poor judgment, lack of business savvy, and bizarre need to politicize donuts.

* * *

You know what, Ron? My unwillingness to tolerate your intolerance doesn’t make me intolerant.

I accept that there are people like you in the world, and your right to be as horrible as you can within the bounds of our laws. But just like you can have issues with the sexiness-levels of movies, and feel the Christian college you pulled your daughter out of was not Christian enough because they let GLBT students enroll –I, and others, have the ability to not support your dishonest endeavors.

Why market to “hippie leftists” and not let your business reflect your true self? Especially since you insist you will not couch your faith or your person-hood for any reason.  I don’t think you should keep your opinions to yourself, or lie about them to make a buck. Let’s see if your intolerance is profitable.

Book Bans and Challenges, 2007-2009 – Google Maps: This map is drawn from cases documented by ALA and the Kids’ Right to Read Project, which is sponsored by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Details are available in ALA’s “Books Banned and Challenged 2007-2008,” http://www.ila.org/pdf/2008banned.pdf and “Books Banned and Challenged 2008-2009” (not available online); and the “Kids’ Right to Read Project Report,” http://www.ncac.org/images/ncacimages/KR2R%202009(1).pdf.

I quit smoking when I was a teenager. (Started at 11.) Cigarette smoke in my hair and clothes, and then transferred from my clothes to the car, and then into my home stinking up the laundry hamper is –irrationally– much more offensive to me than the second-hand carcinogens. Yes, I know, I’m just being honest. But I have to admit that I sorely miss the smoking sections in restaurants since the ban went into effect here in Pittsburgh.

We try not to make it a habit of eating at family friendly places, opting mostly for bars when we’re stopping for a meal out. Sometimes though you just really don’t want to make your own omelet in the morning and the only places that serve breakfast are places with children’s menus.

Every single time I am starting to come around to the idea that perhaps children aren’t entirely awful (brought on by a sudden uptick in the reproduction of my friends from high school days) we go out for breakfast and I am promptly reminded that it’s not the kids, it’s families that are awful. No, I do mean it. I do.

You might be a perfectly lovely couple, and your children might be the best and brightest of their age levels but I don’t want to sit anywhere near you while I’m trying to have a conversation over a meal. Children apparently stopped being able to whisper some time after I stopped being one, and parents have developed new aural adaptations allowing them to tune them out and go about their discussions undisturbed by their unruly accessories. Or maybe it is a new ability to not be completely mortified by their children’s’ food art and non-stop screaming techniques? I can’t be sure.

If faced with a family-friendly establishment prior to the ban, I could at least hide in the smoking section in a cloud of protection, perhaps behind a partition or on the opposite side of the building from the howling chaotic masses squirming in high chairs and under tables. I didn’t have to witness a child’s meal being applied topically and to the booth, the walls and the floor in a three foot radius around their table while the parents droned on and on about lovely table topics like Amberleigh’s latest diaper rash.

Really though, my fault for wanting pancakes over fish n’ chips n’ a pint. I get that. But what about when they show up at the pub? And what about the screaming infant down in front at the late showing of The Dark Knight? What is wrong with people? You have a baby. You knew life was going to get more expensive. Don’t cry foul when some angry moviegoer (not me, I swear) shouts “GET A SITTER ASSHOLE” at you because everyone else should be able to enjoy their movie outing.

If there were movie theaters and restaurants with separate family areas, I would make it a point to only go to those places. One of the theaters I liked when I lived in Maryland had a Mommy Matinée, giving parents a chance to see new releases without ruining it for everyone else. I don’t understand why more of them don’t have age restrictions on clearly mature films, but mostly I don’t understand why someone would want to subject their special snowflake golden child’s delicate ears to TRX sound blasts.

And for what it is worth, I sat quietly and ate whatever my mother ordered for me in restaurants and spoke in whispers because that’s what she said people did in restaurants and as a toddler, why would I argue with The Law? The first and only time I fussed in public at an age where I could communicate verbally, she leaned in really close and whispered, “All of these people are going to think I’m a bad mommy because you are crying and that makes me sad.” The thought of my mom being sad upset me so much that I did my best to zip it up and be polite — until I joined the Girl Scouts. But that’s another story.

Why stop there? Maybe it’s not just the porn. Maybe it is the hotel industry encouraging such sinful activities, offering a private den of iniquity for the traveling Weak. Maybe it’s traveling; the siren song of Adventure pulling people from the safety of their good, clean, Good Clean Christian homes and thrusting them into worldly situations. Stop it all right now! Stay in your homes and lock the doors cuz you just never know when you’ll be confronted by choices and everyone knows choices are anti-family.

I used to work in a video store with a cornucopia of options of the adult variety, rivaling that of many all-adult content video stores. Christianity, even the deep raving fire and brimstone sort, was well represented in the menagerie of partakers of our dirty dirty sinful wares.

I’m indifferent when it comes to the porn issue. My only issue with adult films is their typical plot deficit,  but if they do something for other folks, well, that would explain their popularity, is none of my business anyway, and I’m certainly not going to deny them. I’ll judge them, but only as harshly as I would someone who likes stupid action flicks or those awful movies on the Lifetime network. A bad movie is a bad movie is a bad movie. The harshest judgment I made during my stint as a video store clerk was of people who treated us badly without provocation, and those who returned films damaged, or excessively late (and then demanded I waive their late fees), or –in the case of adult films– covered in bodily fluids.

Over the course of several months we conducted our own little unscientific survey to figure out which jerks were the culprits of the constant stack of un-rewound adult VHS tapes, and adult dvds returned encrusted post-jerk. Who should we gently remind to “Be Kind, Rewind” (or “Don’t Vex, Windex”) without nagging innocent porn aficionados?

My coworkers and I had noted these movies were usually the strangest, most violent, or disturbing of the lot. A chart was made categorizing the bio-hazard returns into genres, and noting the length of time they were out, condition sent out and returned (from each tape or disc’s history as recorded in the system),  the customer’s attitude, and nervousness on a scale of none to crazy, and the addition of any memorable quotes from the exchange. Perusing this highly scientific data one of my coworkers says, “We didn’t sort them into hetero/glbt! Give me different colored highlighters!” We argued for a bit about this because the overwhelming majority of adult films rented from our store were “lesbian” flicks made by men for men. It was settled that these would be “hetero” unless the customer had been noted as female and wasn’t “Mrs. X” who came in to pick up films for her shut-in husband. It wound up being a very complicated endevour and I wish that I still had the scan of this great research work. (Well, great –amazing even– for this group of slackers.)

Our findings? The most uptight, anxious porn customers were also the ones most likely to rent the most hardcore films and return them in the most unappreciated states. They were also the ones most likely to complain about the “rock n’ roll” played in the store, and pass you a Chick tract on their way out.

Of course we were the wicked ones tempting these fine upstanding family men into such filth. They certainly wouldn’t have been interested in it if we hadn’t had it on the shelves in the back room, out of sight, a spot most people had to ask for directions to the first time, and a large number of regular customers didn’t even realize was there. Right? Sure.

The first time he found Sally had passed on, Gramma was out. He was so worried she would be devastated and thinking perhaps having a new dog to fall in love with would be a distraction, he quickly went to find a replacement. The shelter had another liver colored doxie. Perhaps familiarity would be comforting? But when she came home she immediately started lavishing attention on “Sally”, not realizing she wasn’t, before he could explain.

The seventh, and last Sally, was a boy, and not even the same size or color. You’d think walking “her” would finally be a tip off, but she’d just say, “Land alive Miss Sally! You put that leg down and act like a proper lady!”

It was very difficult to get a word in with Gramma, so I can see how this happened. She also insisted she was Russian royalty, and wouldn’t hear otherwise; a direct descendant of Anastasia — and no time lines or encyclopedias were going to sway her.

She also read tarot cards for her friends and neighbors, as well as gave readings of tea leaves. She refused to read mine saying that my future wasn’t set yet. (This left me wondering when futures are set.)

According to Gramma, a bit of green glass she stepped on as a child was circling through her body causing all of her ailments. Her knee hurt? “Oh that glass!” Maybe her shoulder ached? “There’s my glass again.”

Finally, her doctor cured her; she had the shard of green glass in a small vile to show for it. I think about this doctor, a man I never had the pleasure of meeting, quite often. What a kindness to a nice elderly lady. What kind brilliance.

I never questioned her directly, or rolled my eyes, or giggled. I never said she was insane or strange or silly. She was a nice old lady, who made killer latkes and collected elephants with upturned-trunks. She would crochet Muppets for me and managed to give me the same birthday card for five or six years — the same pink unicorn, yet somehow with increasing digits in the printed greetings. Amazing. But I never said a word to her about her odd beliefs. But she also never said I had to agree with her.

So if you’re going to play the Grandma Gambit with me — maybe let me do the honors first: If your dying grandmother wanted to read your tea leaves on her deathbed, would you stop praying and listen?