216) Carrie Prejean

We're not exactly sure which religion Carrie Prejean belongs to, but apparently it's built around two principles: Gays can't get married, and the first amendment of the United States Constitution protects individuals from doing whatever the hell they want. She refers to it as "Christianity", whereas other notable historical figures, such as Jesus, would take issue with this particular interpretation of Christianity.

The problem for Ms. Prejean is that she has forgotten to adequately educate herself on the inner workings of two key documents: The United States Constitution (on which the United States Constitution is based) and the New Testament of the Bible (on which Christianity is based).

As to the first point, reading the New Testament as some kind of carte blanche for gay bashing wouldn't be unlike reading "The Lord of the Rings" and surmising its central message is that select trees can talk slowly and stage uprisings against evil wizards. Getting past whether or not this is even true, it sort of overlooks the slightly more significant themes.

As to the second point, I'd like to pose this analogy: Let's say you hire me to do a job. Let's say that job is customer service for, say, T-Mobile. And let's say someone calls the customer service line and asks me what I think of T-Mobile's service, and I say T-Mobile's service is a bunch of shit and, oh, by the way, caller, I think you're a heathen. Just to top it off, let's also say I never show up for work, and happen to exclaim loudly that I don't believe my co-workers deserve equal protection under the law. Especially the Mexicans. And let's say I go on to point out that this is merely a reflection of my religious beliefs. And let's say this rubs the people at T-Mobile the wrong way. They then have the right to fire me.

They cannot, however, have me arrested. So says the Constitution.

Civics!