An open letter to Colin Kaepernick:

Dear Colin:

According to Wikipedia, you are in the midst of a 6-year, $126 million contract. I’m sure the contract is complex, may not be linear, and might involve performance bonuses. But that works out to $21 million a year. After your agent’s cut (I assume it’s 20%) and taxes (which I’ll assume are 60% of the remainder after the agent’s cut), that gives you $6,720,000 a year to live on. I’ll go further and assume you are putting away 15% of your gross (i.e. before taxes) income for retirement, which is what financial planners advise prudent people to do. That would leave you with $3,570,000 a year to live on. I realize I’m guessing here. Let me round down, and estimate you have $3 million a year to live on.

That’s a sizeable sum, which should allow you to live quite luxuriously and have a lot left over.

We all know now about your refusal to stand to honor and respect our nation when the national anthem is played before 49er football games. I assume you don’t do this because the USA has been unfair to you, but because you believe it has been unfair to other Blacks, and I suspect you mean more specifically young Black males at the hands of law enforcement. I assume the trigger for you to do this now is the reported police shootings of Black men who refused to comply with police instructions over the last two years. The issue of race relations is complex, thus the issue is complex, and I’m sure your protest actually is more complex than that.

As a talented athlete and a highly paid professional, you are a role model for the nation and a spokesperson for the USA to the world. These are thrust upon you whether you want them or not. It’s a price you pay for the position you hold. As a former pastor of mine once explained, the higher you go up the ladder of success or positions of influence or authority, the fewer options you have in terms of behavior. You have relatively few options in the position you’re in. Oh, legally you have those options and many more. But morally, I believe, you have few.

You have chosen to use your position of influence to disrespect our imperfect nation as a means of protest. You are thus telling others who look up to you that this is how you bring about change where change is needed. I suggest to you that what you are doing will not bring about the results you want; it only draws attention to you. Change doesn’t come from shouting about a problem, but by doing meaningful things that will change behaviors.

So, I’d like to suggest a few things I believe you could do to bring about change that will make the USA a better place, a safer place for Blacks, and actually for people of all races.

1. Talk to young people, especially young Blacks, about obeying police commands rather than resisting the police. I haven’t dug into the statistics, but I suspect that approximately zero people who comply with police commands are shot and killed each year.

2. While you’re doing this, you might want to say a few things about living within the law and eschewing lawlessness.

3. Speak to police groups, sheriffs groups, and any other law enforcement groups, about better ways to deal with those who fail to comply with police commands. I believe our law enforcement officers want to do a good job, and would respond well to hearing from someone in a position of influence such as yourself.

4. With the $3 million a year you have to live on (if my math is close to correct), learn to live on $200,000 a month, and give $600,000 a year to works of charity that help inner-city youth to break the cycle of poverty and violence, and, through education and having role models to look to, will find a way out of their conditions. I did some research to see if you are doing any of this, and found some articles from a couple of years ago about your charity works, along with a couple of newer ones. This includes a $1 million donation to “organizations that work with the community.”  I also saw that you’re planning on donating recent jersey sale income to charity. Thank you for that. I commend you, and suggest that the more you do of this the more you will change our nation into a better place, the more you will extend your influence.

In the few public statements I’ve seen you make since your first sitting protest, you came across as whining that people would hold you accountable for your actions. May I suggest you rather accept responsibility for what you have done. Explain that your protest is heartfelt and sincere and that, if it costs you in terms of finances and influence you are ready to accept that as a consequence. Maybe you’ve done that and I missed it. If so I apologize. I’m sure I haven’t heard or read every statement you’ve issued.

Of course, if you think that through, you might realize there is a better, more effective, and longer lasting way to achieve what you want. Assuming what you want isn’t just more fame for yourself.

Third in a series. See the first two here and here.

News story, from the New York Daily News, February 22, 2015, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gay-hair-stylist-drops-new-mexico-governor-client-opposes-same-sex-marriage-article-1.1027072: A hairdresser in New Mexico refused to continue to provide service to New Mexico Governor Susan Martinez after she came out in opposition to same-sex marriage. From the article:

“The governor’s aides called not too long ago, wanting another appointment to come in,” he told KOB-TV. “Because of her stances and her views on this, I told her aides no. They called the next day, asking if I’d changed my mind about taking the governor in and I said no.”

News story, seen April 27, 2015 at Yahoo, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gay-businessman-deeply-sorry-hosting-132836168.html: A New York City hotel that caters to the homosexual community hosted a “fireside chat” type event for Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas who is running for president. From the article:

“I am shaken to my bones by the emails, texts, postings, and phone calls of the past few days,” one of the hoteliers, Ian Reisner, wrote on Facebook. “I made a terrible mistake. I was ignorant, naive, and much too quick in accepting a request to cohost a dinner with Cruz at my home.” …some called for boycotting the Reisner and Weiderpass’ Out NYC Hotel, which caters to LGBT customers, because of Cruz’s social conservative positions.

These are two examples of where businessmen who serve the general public either refused service to someone for political reasons, or are sorry they didn’t refuse service to someone for political reasons, and implied if they had it to do all over again, they would refuse to serve in that instance.

On Facebook, when debating someone about a Christian’s refusal to provide services for a same-sex wedding, I used two examples. First, a black caterer being asked to cater a KKK rally. Second, a Democratic owner of an event center refusing to all his center to be used for the campaign kickoff by a Tea Party Republican mayor. In that debate the person said it was ridiculous to bring up hypotheticals, and that religious believes should never be a justification for refusing service. I disagree with him about the hypotheticals. Indeed, when discussing policy changes, whether they be proposed by politicians or pondered by the courts, I believe you absolutely need to consider how the change would affect people. What better way to do that than through hypotheticals? Wild hypotheticals aren’t helpful, but reasonable hypotheticals are. And I don’t think mine were wild.

So I ask the question: Should a person in business be allowed to discriminate against another person based on a difference in political beliefs? Should the homosexual hairdresser be allowed, by law, to refuse to serve a straight person who opposes same-sex marriage? Should a black person be allowed, by law, to refuse to serve a white person who believes the Black race is inferior to the White and proposes policies that would enforce that belief? I believe they should be so allowed, by law.

How is political belief so different than religious belief? The same amendment to the Constitution that protects freedom of speech (which the original framers meant to refer to political speech) also protects the free exercise of religion. If someone is legally allowed to discriminate on the basis of politics, why not on the basis of religion as well? Yet the same people who cheer the New Mexico hairdresser for discriminating based on politics excoriate the Indiana pizzeria owner for discriminating based on religion. I really don’t get it, except that deep down, behind those who would accept the one and deny the other, is the desire to wipe religion from the earth. Many may not even realize this is the goal; it may be latent as opposed to active, but I think it’s there.

Obviously, I would not propose a person be allowed to discriminate based on race when that discrimination is based on religion. I’m not so sure that the same applies to homosexuality. Yes, some homosexuals (including lesbians) are most likely born with a same-sex attraction, and thus for them to be in a same-sex relationship is following the course of their nature. Others, however, undoubtedly choose to be in a same-sex relationship, for whatever reason. For them this is not a natural thing. What I’m saying is the issue isn’t as clear.

Let’s take one more hypothetical. A homosexual flower shop owner refuses to serve the wedding of a heterosexual couple. Legal, or illegal? Apparently illegal, if it was for the straight bakery to refuse a same-sex wedding. That decision would most likely be based on political beliefs, not religious. The distinction, however, is very small.

So, these religious freedom restoration acts passed by Indiana and Arkansas this legislative season: are they important, or not? Are they needed, or not? I would hate for the black caterer to lose the legal right to refuse service to the white hate group. I would hate for the homosexual hairdresser to lose the right to refuse to serve the straight person due to that person’s politics. Yet, I see that as a tiny step after losing the religious reason.

Continuing from my last post, I want to discuss the idea of a clash of rights again. Let’s think about it from a political sense for a moment. Does a person have a right to associate only with those of the same political beliefs? And if so, can this right extend to those who have a business that serves the public?

An example I used on Facebook was that of a small city, where there was one event center, owned by a staunch Democrat. The mayor of the town is a Republican, and the event center owner hates him and everything he and his party stand for. Let’s say they are both white men. The mayor wants to rent out the event center for the start of his re-election campaign. The Democratic owner of the event center refuses, stating he will not rent it out for a Republican event. Is he within his rights to refuse service?

I would hope he has the right to refuse to serve the Republican, based on his political views. But maybe not. The Republican has the right not to be discriminated against for his political views, and the Democrat has the right of conscious. Which right trumps the other?

That’s not so far-fetched. And of course political rights clearly don’t trump some civil rights. If it had been a black person wanting to rent the event center for his daughter’s wedding, the white Democratic owner couldn’t refuse to rent to him on the basis of political views. Or say it was a black owner. He couldn’t say, “You know, you white Republicans have oppressed my people enough. No, I’m not going to rent it to you for your daughter’s wedding, based on my political views.  I don’t think that would be within the law.

You see, a person doesn’t choose his race, but he does chose his political opinions and actions. So should a person be allowed to refuse to serve another person based on the politics of the two? I think that’s a very important question that needs to be settled. Race is inherent; political affiliation is not. Must a person who runs a business that serves the general public be forced to serve someone of a different political stripe? If the event is a political one, I would think not. If the event is a private one (such as the wedding reception), I would still think not. I would still like to see the person retain his right to conscious based on his political beliefs. In those cases, I can’t really see how anyone’s civil rights were violated.

What say you? Do you agree with me or not? Do we have the right to act on political conscious?

I think I’ll end this post here.  In the next one I’ll start honing in more on how this relates to the homosexual situation. And in one after that, I may finally get into where I stand on the narrower issue.

Some days ago I wrote out a blog post in manuscript; not completely, but enough to get me going once I got to my computer. Alas, I have no idea where that piece of paper is. It’s not in all the usual places. I could look in unusual places, but that seems like work, more work than starting from scratch.

So, having finished my stock chart reading for the evening, and not yet ready to exit The Dungeon and read, I’ll try to recreate this.

The impetus for this post is the recent passage of religious freedom bills (RFRA) in Indiana and Arkansas, as described in this post. I won’t repeat what I said there. At least I don’t think I will. And, I’m fairly sure I won’t be able to finish my thoughts in just one post of reasonable length for a blog, maybe not in two. So I hope readers of this post will indulge me my wordiness, and come back for all doses of this. And my full argument won’t be clear until the very end. If you stop before that you may get the wrong impression of what I’m saying.

I got into a couple of Facebook debates on the state RFRAs. Nothing earth shattering. Mainly I said I hadn’t read the bills/acts in question, didn’t know what they said, but didn’t know why they were needed. The general interpretation of the acts by one side was that they gave license for people to discriminate against the homosexual community based on their own religious views. The interpretation of the other side seemed to be that the right of conscious based on religious views needed to be preserved, and government actions were leaning towards doing away with religious conscious. I hope that’s a reasonable summary, and not too repetitive of my former post.

Trying to think of this from a larger viewpoint than just the homosexual community, it seems what you have here is a clash of rights: one group’s right to be treated justly, and another group’s right to act on their conscious, regardless of the reason why they have that position.  Let’s say this was a case of a landlord not wanting to rent to a black person because his religion (or political conscious) forbids him to. The USA has determined that in such a clash of rights, the civil rights of the black person outweigh the right of conscious of a landlord, and he/she can’t behave that way. He/she cannot base rental decisions on race.

What about business-to-consumer services based on sexual orientation?  This is a harder area to define, in my mind. With regard to race, a person is whatever race they were born with. It wasn’t their choice. In the case of sexual orientation, it seems to me that the jury is still out on whether it’s a choice or an in-born trait. Or perhaps it’s always a choice or always an inborn trait. I suspect it is an inborn trait in many cases, and a choice in many as well. If it’s a choice, do the civil rights or the homosexual person (by which I mean both males and females who practice same-sex relations) trump the right-of-conscious of the straight person? Or are the rights about equal, and hence neither side should require any special mention in the law as being a protected class.

These are difficult issues in my mind. I realize people who read this might disagree—on either side. It might be clear cut to some that it’s always a choice or always an inborn trait. Someone might even say it doesn’t make a difference whether it’s a choice or inborn. It is how it is, and discrimination vs. conscious must be settled one way of the other.

Without settling the question concerning the clash of rights as it relates to homosexuals, I want to consider the broader picture of other areas of conscious. Alas, as I thought, I’m out of space in this blog post. Look for another post in a day or two—at least I’ll try to get back to this that quickly.