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Why I Worry about What I Cook

So here I am, a couple of years into my eighties, making matzo ball soup, and fearing for my access to ingredients!

(I shall not enter into the contest for a preferred spelling for matzo, or matzoh, or matzah, etc., and have chosen to use the spelling on the container of Matzo Meal provided by Manischewitz, except that I cannot spell "Manischewitz", either.)

In the first place, I am not Jewish, so I have no profoundly religious reasons for making matzo ball soup in the first place.  And I am confident that somewhere in the Torah (or is that Tora?) it surely states that no one of derivative, second-hand, runty Norwegian immigrant persuasion shall be permitted to desecrate the most sacred place in the lives of an ancient Mesopotamian, Palestinian, Ukranian, or Miami Beach religious persons by messing with the matters of their hearts.

I understand that my pots are polluted, and that my taste buds have not been reared under the watchful eyes of a genuine guilt-producing, tastefully-trained mother with a wooden spoon and an apron.  My mother had both a wooden spoon and an apron, but she was not Jewish.  She would surely have fried the matzo balls until they properly crisped up:  I am not doing it that way.  I do, after all, subscribe to Fine Cooking.

What really worries me, and my reason for locking the door while I torture the broth from the chicken wings and onions and carrots, is that the full weight of the government of the State of Arizona, focussed in Phoenix--a State of Affairs abhorrent to a skinny majority of the County of Pima and the City of Tucson--has passed a bill that proposes to make it meet, right, salutary, and legal for any person or business to refuse to do business with any gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, trans-sexual, hyper-super-sexual person if that gay-etc., person offends the religion of the person or corporation that sells matzo meal, or wedding cakes, or anything else that perverts want to buy.  The wording, of course, is expressed somewhat more delicately that I am capable of reciting, but the intent is clear:  if what you are offends the religion of the grocer, she does not have to sell you the matzo meal.  Lesbians may not be able to buy cupcakes from the Died-in-the-Wool, Bible-Believing, Turtle-Talking, Men-are-Natural-Heads-of-Households-and-Bedposts bakery owners.  I have not had time to consider what latex products Catholic drug store owners might not be willing to sell to embarrassed young men, or whether the Two-Seed-in-the-Spirit desk clerk at the motel might think or do about renting rooms.  It is the possibility of being denied access to matzo meal that terrifies me.  It is bacon!  It is wondering whether the clerk is a Jehovah's Witness who will not sell me coffee.  It is . . . , it is a legislature that has proposed to let religious bigots ruin my soup!

The Governor has not yet signed the bill, and we all know that Jan Brewer is a tower of principle and courage, even if she is a public, airport-runway scold of Presidents and Perceived Liberals.  So there is probably no chance that religious fundamentalists and bigots will be able to refuse us goods and services and matzo meal, is there?  But I worry.  Will our Governor keep her courage?

I will say it now, and I will say it loudly and clearly!  I do not want Moses or Aaron, or Pope Pius the IIIrd or XVth, or even a reasonably average Presbyterian or Baptist to write laws that will deny me access to matzo meal!  Here I stand:  I can do no other!

And that applies to health care and condoms, too!


Isn't there something rational that legislatures can do?  Do we have to have ignoramuses represent us?  

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