R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

When I started this blog, I promised myself I would avoid some of the classic land mines -- religion, politics, religion, giving away too much information about myself online, and religion.

I am about to break my promise to myself, thanks to the efforts of some local fundraisers.

This past Sunday, as you probably are already aware, was Easter; a major holiday for approximately 235 million Americans. In keeping with the spirit of the holiday (despite incredible efforts to commercialize it), there were none of the usual plethora of fundraising phone calls that have seriously marred every. single. weekend. for the past several months.

Friday and Saturday, as many of you are probably already aware, were the main days of Passover, a major holiday for approximately 6.5 million Americans of the Jewish faith (among whom, as you are about to find out, I count myself). Unfortunately, I cannot say it was of equal importance to whatever group was under contract to conduct fundraising for the local firefighters.

Although the number of celebrants of the overlapping holidays differs by a factor of 100, we are still talking about roughly six and a half MILLION adherents of one of the major recognized "Western" religions... and one of the region's largest concentrations happens to be located in this county.

Imagine my family's surprise, then, to have the phone begin to ring literally in the middle of our seder the other night. My father answered the phone (more out of habit than by design) and found himself speaking with a gentleman who promptly asked him for money. No "sorry to disturb you," no "sorry for calling in the middle of a major holiday," just the usual polite-icized "we play an important role in the county and need you to give us some cash."

Granted, the county's firefighters do indeed play an extremely important role in the lives of the local citizens -- my argument is not with them (although some of the county's actions ostensibly taken on behalf of the FD over the past year are in my "ideas" file for possible future postings here). What has me annoyed (actually, to use the vernacular, I was royally pissed off) is the fact that one of the world's major religions was considered "off limits" to fundraisers while another was not.

I fully understand that society as we know it likely could not function if every holy day of every religion was declared "off limits" for non-observant activities -- but  Passover is a major holiday commemorating an event that echoes through through the history of several major religions, and is actually recognized and celebrated in a variety of ways by additional millions of Christians in the United States.

I think a little respect would be appropriate -- I would not make such calls on Easter, or Christmas, or the eve of Eid or Ramadan, and I am sorry to learn that others (allegedly working on behalf of a formal government-funded organization) could not put off their phone calls until the two (just two!) primary nights of this holiday had passed.

I'm not annoyed... but I will be once I calm down.

How about you?