Like Austin Texas…

...I’m an out-of-place blueberry in a bowl of Ohio tomato soup… and I know it. 😁

Here’s my question: Why do they (my politically “deep red” Ohio district) make us, well me, vote at a church when there is supposed to be separation of church and state?   

Yes, I grant you, there is a workaround.  I could do mail-in voting to solve the (my) “separation” problem, if I find it that egregious.

But that’s not what I’m getting at here.  I’m honing in on the Constitution’s “separation of church and state” angle/clause.  Indeed, I’m talking about the unabashed opposite; the “adjoining” of the church (religion) and the state (government). Constitutionally speaking, the “merging of the two” doesn’t seem on the up-and-up to me, but…. 🤷‍♀️.

Some more interesting questions:

• Do you know if churches bid on the right to be a voting precinct/location?  How does that work exactly?  Are some of them in cahoots with/have special connections to the Board of Elections or whomever decides on the designated polling places? Could it be a case of, “Friends don't let friends drive drunk go churchless?” 😉

• What if the voter is a Christian and their designated voting site in a Mosque or Synagogue?  Would there be any need for the Christian to be “riled up” over that?  How about a Muslim or a Jew voting in some Christian-denomination church?  No one should be offended in any way?  It’s just one of the “bad brakes” in life (win some, lose some)?  Or, is the discomfort one may feel (of having to go into a facility that is against their own belief/non-belief principles) just being overly sensitive/overreacting?  Not being woke enough?

• If you are an atheist, which many here claim to be, how do YOU feel about having to vote in a church environment?  Not give it any serious thought?  Or, just hold your nose and do it, no questions asked?  Be an in-and-out burger (in…vote…out ⚡) as fast as you can.  No lollygagging and you’ll emerge unscathed from any unwelcomed influence. Whew!  Dodged that one!!

• If a religious facility hosts a voting location, should that facility be allowed to lay out guilt-riddled, religion-related pamphlets right by the front door, so you can’t possibly miss them (as the church I voted at Tuesday did)?  Or say, hold a bake sale in the lobby all during voting hours, as a (let’s call it) reward/perk for hosting the voting event?  Is it a kind of “to the victor go the spoils” thing, allowing/permitting the church site to take monetary advantage of the situation, in order to “bulk up/pad” the church's coffers)? 😮

**** 

Okay, okay, that was just a bunch of rhetorical grouchbox-ery, and I know that too; my mind working overtime, making a political mountain out of a little pile of religious molehill dirt, and probably more like something I posted for your reading “amusement.”  (It was. 😊)

Life is complicated and full of complicated people and situations. IOW somebody, somewhere, isn’t gonna like the outcome of “whatever the case may be.” That’s never going away.  As a doctor once told me about my TMJ, “Why don’t you just learn to live with it?”  And that’s what I’ve done.  It’s like learning to live with left-handedness in a mostly right-handed world.  Whaterya gonna do?

No, I post this OP mostly as food for (your) thought, and not to stir up trouble.  Answer the questions if you like, no pressure or expectations.  Your prerogative.  Else, just think about them in private.  That’s good enough, as far as I’m concerned.  "Thinking" is a great benefit/blessing/perk/etc. for those of us with full bellies.  Take advantage of our luck-of-the-draw birth situation.

Just some more FWThey'reW concepts to ponder, in our never-ending struggle for that elusive “more perfect union.”

(by PrimalSoup)