Sorry, your religious beliefs don’t give you licence to be an asshole.

So the National Post (Canadian conservative mouthpiece newspaper, for those of you not in the know), published this lovely article today, about the fine, upstanding moral Catholic pharmacists and doctors (notice the blatant sarcasm), who won’t give people birth control or emergency contraceptives, and violate several codes of ethics in doing such.

Gag me with a spoon.

Yes, you are entitled to your beliefs. No, as a medical professional, you are not entitled to impose them on people who need their fricking medication.

And don’t even get me started on the so-called “moral values” of saving sex for marriage. Please don’t. My personal moral philosophy is simply “Harm none”. Why is that so hard for others to grasp? In short: please, right-wingers, get the fuck out of my sex life. (Or lack therof at this point). And everyone else’s, for that matter.

Not prescribing birth control or emergency contraceptives because of your proclaimed beliefs in the “sanctity of life” or “morality” is just absurd. How is it protecting anyone if a teenager in a rural area is denied birth control, and later gets pregnant? I have a friend who, at the time, lived in a rural area, when she thought she may have done something that could potentially have gotten her pregnant. She had to get her mother to drive her to a pharmacy, which was quite a ways away, to get the EC pill. But, she did, and continued with her life as usual.

What if she had one of these “moral” citizens as her pharmacist? What would she have done? And where, possibly, would she be now?

Jesus Christ. (No pun intended). Not everyone is taking birth control for “impure” reasons (although, to quote Seinfeld, not that there’s anything wrong with that). I take it for acne and awful cramps. If I lived in a remote area, deny me my prescription and I’m doubled over in pain, breaking out in pimples, and I probably won’t like you very much.

So much for pretending to care about people, huh?

Day of Silence Wrap-Up

It was amazing.

We had an estimated 50-60 participating, although it was hard to gauge, because, it being a Friday afternoon, the turnout for Breaking the Silence wasn’t huge.

It was extremely powerful. At one point in the day, I thought “Damn! I am one of thousands and thousands doing this. And if I hadn’t organized this, there would be about 50 less people.” The responses were almost all positive – my law teacher was taunting me a bit as expected, but I had quite a few positive responses as well. And I saw quite a few teachers wearing their black ribbons. However, apparently some people called one of my friends a “fag”, which was really disheartening. Homophobia and transphobia are alive and well at my school, which is why I think we need to do the Day of Silence.

Did I mention that fate seemed to work perfectly in my favour? You see, kids, I had what can be assumed to be a meeting with some bad scallops the night before. Or something. I wasn’t horribly violently ill or anything, but my first thought was “Dear god, please do not let me have the stomach flu.” And I didn’t – so I guess it was some very mild food poisoning. Or something. I was mostly fine the next day, except for not being able to eat much, and my stomach feeling slightly unsettled.

And today, we have a surprise transit strike. I just found that out about five minutes ago. That’s what happens when you live on the internet and update your blog every day and don’t watch TV. Anyways, I got really lucky. Because if it had happened the day before, we’d have been screwed – almost nobody would be at school.

That hateful asshole Fred Phelps says that “God Hates Fags”. Well, obviously, if there is a god, he/she/they LOVE the Day of Silence.

All kidding aside, one girl, who’s straight, wrote this brilliant facebook note about her experiences doing the Day of Silence. I wish I could link to it – it really is amazing. Anyways, I think she hit the nail on the head when she said that being silent all day taught her how hard it is to be silent.

So I say we stand up and fight, until none of us are silenced.

A few pictures (there would have been more, except I couldn’t track everyone down to ask permission to put them on here):

Some of my friends:

Me, with a friend: (I’m on the right, in case everyone was wondering what I look like)

The folks who turned out for “Breaking the Silence”:

It was an amazing day.

I will be back to my normal ranting tomorrow. No worries.

Update: My friend Sinead wrote a great blog post about participating in the Day of Silence. Check it out here.