Criminal Negligence

Tags

climate change, Columbine High School, crime, Democrats, genocide, gun violence, Nazis, NRA, Republicans, Trump

(Note: I am writing this the day before the 20th anniversary of the killings at Columbine High School, and two days after a credible threat of gun violence, likely prompted by that anniversary, forced all Denver-area schools to close and 400,000 students to stay home.  The perpetrator killed herself with the very gun it was feared she might use against others.  Approximately 2,000,000 instructional hours also died.

In that short span, the world’s glaciers lost some of their volume and the seas rose commensurately.  

One tragedy is sporadic, predictably unpredictable, and swift.  The other is persistent, predictably predictable, and slow.  Neither is inevitable.) 

The motto, If You See Something, Say Something, popularizes a principle — if you know of a criminal act, whether planned or perpetrated, failure to inform the authorities what you know is, itself, a criminal act.

Mere suspicion may not be as formally demanding, but the level of our responsibility to say something rises with the seriousness of the possible crime.

Genocide is the greatest crime that humans can commit.  Failure to say what we know, or even suspect, about it must be nearly as serious.

Complicity in global warming is global genocide.  In America, gun violence may not rise to that level of universal significance, but it is our own home-made mini-genocide.

The day is past when anyone, whatever their level of education or current-events awareness, can legitimately claim ignorance of our two genocides.

And the day is past when anyone can legitimately claim that there is not enough information to support the scientific assertions of global warming and its potentially lethal effects.

Genocide-by-guns is a bit different.  We know accurately how many lives guns take each year.  But we are less predictable than the Earth in our response to life-altering forces.  Still, it is reasonable to assume that, if gun deaths increase, more of us will look to guns for protection, the supply will rise, and deaths will increase all the more.

Thinking about these two trends, we might take the experience of World War II as a sobering lesson.  Perhaps the world outside Germany could not have been certain enough of the genocide of the Jews to justify early intervention.  

But the price of that hesitation — whether or not it was defensible — was the death of millions.

In the face of global warming and gun violence, there is no doubt about the need to act, and there can be no justification for hesitating.  If we fail to respond, will we be morally any different than Hitler and the Nazis?

Responsibility to take action is shared broadly, but it would be mealy-mouthed not to identify the guilty.  The Republican Party, or at least those it harbors who blindly support the most globally harmful activities and bow before the might of the NRA, and pushed even further into denial and obstruction by the Trump Administration, bear the greatest burden of guilt.

This does not exonerate the Democratic Party, which must act forcefully against the two genocides.  Politics requires compromise, but that must proceed from honest Seeing and Saying.

Inaction is criminal negligence, punishable — eventually but inevitably — by death.

Advertisements

School for Scandal

Tags

admissions scandal, bribery, college, Columbia, ethics, morality, New York City, SATs

I want to be clear at the outset.  I cheated to get my son into a prestigious university.  This was years ago, so you might say I was a pioneer in that game, though instigator may be more accurate.  I certainly don’t boast about what I did.

Without my son’s knowledge, I paid someone to take his SAT exam.  Whether it was, or is, a violation of the law I’m not certain, but I do know it was a violation of the most fundamental principles of honesty and fair-dealing. 

Lest you think I am about to throw myself at the mercy of the legal system or public opinion, I am not.  I believe that my misdeed (or crime, if you wish) is now beyond the statute of limitations.  But, even if it weren’t, it has, by chance, produced some good that I would not wish to destroy.  I’ll try to explain:

My son was an amiable, but feckless, kid.  He slid through junior high and high school with grades just good enough to keep him from being held back.  His real passion was sports, but as a fan, not an athlete (you could say this assured he would escape at least that particular college admissions scandal).

It was clear he was not headed for college, and I wasn’t going to push him.  But I didn’t want him hanging uselessly around the house or the town.  A chance to live in a different environment might be the spur he needed.

We talked about it, and he admitted that his dream was to go, every day if possible, to a game — baseball, hockey, basketball, football, it didn’t matter.  I didn’t see any particular benefit, but I didn’t see any harm, and we considered how, and where, he could do that.

He was unequivocal:  New York City, with the Yankees and the Mets, the Rangers and the Islanders, the Knicks, the Giants.

I didn’t disagree, but, when I looked at New York housing costs, it was quite a bite, even for a rich man.  But more serious was the thought of his being alone in what could be a pretty tough, unforgiving city.

As I wondered what arrangement would give him social contacts, it hit me: Columbia University!  If he could stay in a dorm, he’d have a roommate and scores of dorm-mates, even a Resident Assistant or two to check on him, plus a college cafeteria (nutritious if not exactly tasty) and an infirmary.  I didn’t rule out the possibility that he’d notice there was a library there that might have biographies of Gehrig or Ruth or Jackie Robinson.

I didn’t mention my idea to him, but went ahead and made the SAT arrangements (make it solid, I instructed, but not so brilliant they’ll smell a rat).  I did the application, including the essay (same principle), and sent it in.  A few months and, voila! he was accepted.

It wasn’t easy explaining all this to my son, but I managed, without giving anything away.  I persuaded him that Columbia was big, and nobody would notice he wasn’t going to classes.  The prospect of going to a game every day made it easy to gloss over questions like tests and papers or, more serious, what if offcialdom found out.  We both understood that, at most, this would be a one-year proposition.

In late August, off he went.  He dutifully reported on baseball and football games, and the beginning of basketball and hockey seasons.  At first, he was rapturous, but around November, and then especially after Christmas break, there was a change.  It was a game every other day, then every third day, and he no longer seemed quite as excited about home runs and hat-tricks.

Worried, I phoned him.  He said he was great.  It was just that his roommate and his new friends had gotten him interested in a few classes and, the more he went to, the more he wanted to go to.

I think you see where this is headed.  He finished the year with reasonable grades, did better each successive year, graduated with honors, went to law school and, in time, became a successful, respected, and quite well-known judge.  And, by the way, he still loves sports.

I have never told him what I did.  

I know two wrongs don’t make a right.  But what if it’s only one rather insignificant wrong?  I ask myself what are the odds that the person who might have been in his place at Columbia would have produced the good he has.  I ask what his life would have been like if he had continued to bumble around and hadn’t had that fire lit under him or how he would have responded if I’d pushed him to do what he seemed unprepared for.

Does a very positive end justify a negative (but not so terribly negative) means?

All I can conclude is that the results of my misdeed are probably more positive than the results of my inaction would have been.  But then, no matter what the outcome, I violated a sensible code that would be destroyed if everybody did what I did.

Oy, what a muddle that I guess I’ll have to leave to others to sort out.

A Guide for the Perplexed

Tags

ethics, goodness, guidance, kindness, maxims, morality, personal choice, slogans, wisdom

We live in uneasy times.  Our media are controversial, our heroes tainted, our leaders besmirched, our religions tarnished, and our sciences doubted.  So, where can we turn for guidance?

I first thought our popular slogans might help, but, except for a few oldies that still raise a smile (Levy’s Rye Bread: You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s; Smuckers: With a name like “Smuckers,” it has to be good), I couldn’t get past the flip egotism of most, summed up smugly in Nike’s Just do it!  (How about Nancy Reagan’s Just say no!)

The slogans did, however, remind me of their more sober, older cousins, the ageless maxims that offer to guide us along life’s difficult path.

I studied various sources, hoping to find wisdom that would help, but it wasn’t as easy as I had hoped.

The first hurdle was the apparent mutual contradiction of some maxims, like Might makes right vs. The meek shall inherit the earth (GIVE ME YOUR WALLET OR I’LL SHOOT YOU! … pretty please?!!)

Then, there were the mildly feather-headed, like:  A soft answer turneth away wrath (have you ever tried reasoning with a drunken bully?) …

The ambiguous:  A little learning is a dangerous thing (well, maybe, if you give a toddler a chemistry set) …

The out-of-date:  Don’t take any wooden nickels (wood I know, but what’s a nickel?) …

The cringe-makingly out-of-date:  A woman’s place is in the home (yes, and a fool and his testicles are soon parted) …

The puzzlingly illogical:  Cold hands, warm heart (has anyone with cold hands ever been anything but a miserable whiner?) …

And the merely stupid (that, inexplicably, seem to focus on horses), like:  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth (DO!  If it’s sick or old, you’ll be saddled with medical bills that would make open-heart-surgery look cheap) and Don’t close the barn door after the horse has fled (if there are other horses in the barn, CLOSE IT IMMEDIATELY, for ’Tis better to lose one horse’s ass than to be one).

There were some that made sense, but the task of making a consistent To Do life-list on my own was daunting.  I decided to consult trusted sources that had already done comprehensive evaluations (a sort of Consumers’ Report Approved Aphorisms List).  The results were not encouraging.  A few examples from a multitude:

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other side of the Fence: There are two sides of every fence.  If one is greener, the other must be less-green.  Therefore, The grass is greener on the other side of the fence half the time.

A Barking Dog Never Bites: It may be impossible for a dog to both bark and bite at the same time, but, once he’s done with that, he can, and may, bite and certainly more frequently than a dog that doesn’t bark, especially one that wags its tail and rolls over.

He Who Fights and Runs Away Lives to Fight Another Day:  Perhaps sometimes, but certainly not regularly.  He who runs away is probably losing.  The chance that he can outrun his presumably-less-battered opponent is close to nil, and then his punishment will be much worse.  Perhaps, He Who Fights Deserves the Beating He Gets.  

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere:  Utter nonsense.  It will get you everywhere.  And it doesn’t even have to be plausible.  Just ask any politician who has ever been elected to any public office.

It Takes a Thief to Catch a Thief:  Whether this is true or not is irrelevant.  It’s simply bad policing policy, especially if it means relying on another thief to catch that thief, and then another to catch the second thief, ad infinitum.

With that, I gave up my search for a personalized handbook of what to do.  Instead, every day, in the paper, I read the police blotter, the pleas for help in the personal advice columns, and the news from Washington.  I systematically do not do whatever has been reported.  I never would have guessed that being so negative could be so positive.

Small Kindesses

Tags

Alan Paton, america, books, Cry the Beloved Country, human kindess, Jim Harrison, libraries, South Africa, Willa Cather

I’m a wanderer.  A library-stack-wanderer.  Though, occasionally, I’ve rambled around the non-fiction section — seeking guidance from ethicists or insight from astrophysicists, or revisiting the wonderful John McPhee — I am habitually a fiction-section-library-stack-wanderer.

I go without preconception and let impulse decide where in the alphabet to start.  I do try to give every author a fair look, though I’m pretty cursory with the bottom shelf (bad back).  Name-recognition can sway me (I was once in a fairly long-term relationship with Willa Cather), but I favor experiment.

That’s how I happened on Jim Harrison, a brilliant writer I had inexcusably never encountered before.  I read The English Major, then Legends of the Fall, and went eagerly back for more.

There weren’t any more.

My stacks are in a small branch library, part of a big system where a book borrowed at one branch can be returned to any other.  What may once have been a Harrison trove at my branch is probably now wandering separately, randomly, branch-to-branch (though, who’s to say that the two I brought home were not the first of his family to live at my branch?).

Sensible people will ask why I didn’t log-in and order delivery of other Harrisons, but why spoil an exciting adventure?  He’ll be back, I’m certain, and, in the meantime, I’m free to explore in different directions.

Just last week, I was at my local branch.  I decided to start near the end of the alphabet.  Working back from S, I got to P (don’t expect a facile joke here), and gave the bottom shelf my usual passing glance.  There, in the middle, was Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country.

I hesitated.  Reading a work that had been famous and influential for over half a century didn’t seem to qualify as adventure.  Alan Paton was not a new name, even to me.  

But my smaller, sensible part reminded me of the power of famous books I had once neglected — O Pioneers; Madame Bovary; War and Peace.

I picked up Paton.  I knew the book was a passionate indictment of South
African apartheid.  But I didn’t anticipate how understated and persuasive that passion actually is — unpreachy in its tone, measured in its narrative, and subdued, even, at times, monotone and repetitive, in its dialogue, as if the country and its people — black and white — were being worn away one slow, inexorable drop after another.

It made me weep.

What we know of the evils of South Africa at the time Paton wrote, and what we know of the changes the book helped advance, are emotional enough.

But we can’t help reading through the lens of our own era and experience.

I was weeping at least as much for my own beloved country, reminded of the crassness and stupidity and outright evils we endure, one slow, inexorable drop after another, but also of the ultimate power of human reason and compassion and kindness.

I can’t think of a better way to start exploring what we’re about, and where we’re headed, than wandering through the library stacks for something good to read.  It doesn’t have to be limited to the fiction section.  Every book, just by being itself, is a small kindness.

 

Altered Boys

Tags

altar boys, Catholic Church, choir boys, pedophiles, Pope Francis, predators, priests

I escaped the predators.  Others may not have.

The sports I played as a kid, mainly baseball and hockey, didn’t lend themselves to closed-door conferences with coaches.  And dads were ever-present.

I gave Boy Scouts a try, but our leaders were idiots and I quit.     

Most important, I wasn’t an altar- or choir-boy.  Unitarians didn’t qualify.

But I wasn’t completely oblivious.  In our neighborhood-kids’ grapevine, vague allusions to priests and the boys who served them occasionally circulated.  We laughed unknowingly knowingly.

There were also rumors about what might happen if you rubbed a certain organ in a certain way.  But that was premature.  The possibility that, God forbid, someone else might help with the rubbing, or that you might help someone else, didn’t arise.

Whatever dark secrets were floating about, I was too busy to care.  There was too much else to do.  The neighborhood was filled with kids and we lived outdoors, in the cornfields across the street, in the creek up the street, in the swamp near the creek, in the woods up the hill, in the abandoned quarry at the top of the hill.

Some of us were Catholic, some were not.  We all knew who was what.  It didn’t make any difference when we were bashing through our pagan Eden, with its occasional perils (especially the quarry walls), but, at least, no predators.

It wouldn’t have occurred to us that some of our mates might be safer there than a mile away, at St. James, in God’s anointed sanctuary, in the hands of the priests.

This isn’t an attack on St. James.  I have no idea if anything bad happened there.  It’s not a call to substitute organized religion with some kind of youthful paganism (keep Lord of the Flies in mind).

And it’s not an attack on the Catholic Church.  It’s simply an appeal to human decency and common sense.

The Church is as capable of good as it is of evil.  It has the history and the horsepower to make a difference in human lives.  It also, now, has a Pope who seems genuinely to care as much about people’s physical and psychic needs as their spiritual well-being.

Please, Francis, be sensible.  Open the priesthood to married men and to women!  The notion of a celibate priesthood is a sick joke.  In a battle between Sex and God, Sex will usually win.

The change wouldn’t guarantee an end to scandals, but at least it might warn aspirants that the church is not their personal pick-up bar, and allow a growing number of priests to satisfy their urges within the bounds of church doctrine, the law, and sensible morality.

Perhaps, then, the Church might, with an easy conscience, allow its priests to lead its children among the fields, the swamps, the woods, and the hills where godliness also lives.

A Hypocrite’s Tale

Tags

ADA, African Americans, Democrats, discrimination, freedom of religion, gay rights, justice, LGBTQ, liberalism, Muslims, Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Once upon a time, in what one might have wished were a mythical land, a prominent official and her family went out for Sunday dinner at a local restaurant.

Shortly after they were seated, the owner, at the instigation of restaurant staff, asked their guest, and family, to leave:

Is it because I’m African-American? the official asked.

No, no at all, the owner responded.  I had no idea that was the case and, not only because of the law, but out of my own personal values, would never engage in or condone that kind of discrimination.

That is admirable, the official commented.  So, your request must be based on the fact that I am a Muslim!?

Oh no, never.  I believe that religious freedom and tolerance applies to all — Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus — and, even if that were not the case, there are laws that, as the owner of a business, open to the public, I must obey.

So, it must be that I’m a lesbian!?

Goodness no, I’m a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights.  I even marched in the Pride Parade this past weekend.  I would never …

So, the fact that my partner is a trans-gender former female has no bearing?

None at all.

Nor, presumably, our adopted daughter’s Asian ethnicity?

No, I celebrate ethnic diversity.  I have many Asian friends.

Nor our adopted son’s multiple sclerosis?

I empathize with him and, in fact, you’ll notice that our wheelchair ramp is fully ADA-compliant.

So, am I to conclude that your action — which you admit you would consider immoral, and which would, in fact, be illegal if based on any of the above conditions — is political?

Well, really, it’s my staff who object.

And they, rather than you, the owner, are the ones who establish restaurant policy?

Well, they would have refused to serve you, so I am simply trying to make the situation as bearable as possible.

So, you are a coward.  Are you also a Democrat?

I am.

And, as a Democrat, you presumably consider yourself a liberal.

I do.

And is it a tenet of liberals that those who do not share liberal values should be subjected to the same kind of treatment that blacks, other non-Caucasians, non-Christians, homosexuals, and the handicapped were once subjected to?

Well … but aren’t you and your policies based on the same kind of hatred?

At least we’re honest.  But, thank you for your admission.  And thank you, too, for saving us from any more of your delusional self-righteousness.

(The official and her family left without further incident.  The owner and staff took note of the fact that she did NOT leave a tip … the bitch!)

Across the Great Divide

Tags

abortion rights, balance-of-power, gun rights, NRA, Parkland, Planned Parenthood, right to life, school shootings, tribalism

If you’re pro-abortion, odds are you’re anti-gun. If you’re pro-gun, odds are you’re anti-abortion.

This seems so normal a part of our cultural/political wars that it’s easy to miss an apparent anomaly: in their opposition to each other, both sides are taking essentially the same position, that the protection of human life is paramount.

This seeming convergence of views is easily lost in the noise of each camp’s main slogan — a woman’s right to rule her own body; a citizen’s right to possess a gun.

But, in any rational definition of rights, these must be secondary to the right to life.

In other words, each camp is either lying about what it really believes or blind to the contradiction between its own (presumed unimpeachable) moral foundation and the (presumed indefensible) moral foundation of its opponent.

The two sides may not think of themselves as hypocrites, but they are. No semantic evasion can avoid the fact that abortions take lives and guns take lives.

But logic is one thing and reality is another. These are essentially two tribes, with different beliefs and rituals, even different territories. Expecting them to recognize their moral blindness and abandon fundamental doctrines, which others may regard as mere second-order principles, in favor of some distant higher-order principle like the sanctity of life, is unrealistic.

A thought-experiment might be helpful here. If you are pro-abortion, would you accept an end to, or at least a curtailment of, the legal right to abortions if it meant a corresponding end to, or curtailment of, the legal right to own guns? If you are pro-gun, would you accept this quid-pro-quo?

The answer, right now, is pretty obvious: the NRA is strong and very unlikely to accept detente. Planned Parenthood, in its weakness, would have no incentive to capitulate.

The key is a reasonable balance-of-power.

If anti-gun sentiment should grow, as it has especially in the wake of the recent Florida school shooting, you don’t have to be an anti-gun activist to think that a few bullet-holes in the NRA’s balloon might be a good thing if it re-balanced the equation and improved the chances for a serious discussion of a shared — higher — value.

Call it cautious optimism, with very heavy emphasis on the cautious.

We Too!

Tags

Gun Control, gun owners, gun violence, guns, Me Too!, murder, NRA, Parkland, safe schools, Second Amendment, students

The unspeakable tragedies of American gun violence regularly raise hopes that we can, at last, deal with this national cancer. And, just as regularly, these hopes are dashed.

The recent killing of seventeen souls — most of them students — at a Florida high school, and the angry, politically-focused response of many of the survivors, raise our hopes once again.

This time, there may be a slightly better chance for progress. These kids elicit powerful emotions. But they and their supporters need an organized political force, proven in battle, that could test an adversary as powerful and implacable as the NRA and its legion of American gun-owners.

Sadly, that force will not come from a political party. Certainly not from the Republicans and probably not from the Democrats. Politicians, understandably, follow before they lead and, so far, no force has come even remotely close to challenging the political influence of the NRA and its supporters.

Sensible gun policies need American women. For many decades, they have demonstrated the power of organization, most significantly voting rights, and, when political means have failed — the Equal Rights Amendment, for example — they have built on social activism and educational achievement to earn power and influence.

The Me Too movement has added an important element to women’s activist muscle, demonstrating that mass support can assuage individuals’ fears of retribution, and sexual menace and violence can be successfully challenged.

The menace and the violence that comes from guns is not that different. Behind a pinch in the ass or a lewd remark lies the serious possibility of rape. Behind a gun in the glove compartment or concealed under a jacket lies the serious possibility of death.

Most sexual predators are men. Most gun-owners, including NRA supporters, are men. Women are savvy enough to recognize that relative security from sexual predators means little if they, and their loved ones, might be victims of gun predators.

I’m not proposing a war of the sexes. But American men — already in free-fall, now reeling from the disgrace of icons of male power, and more divided than women over the gun issue — are simply not in a position to lead.

Men grieve just as profoundly as women at the loss of a child to gun violence. But there still is a symbolism in motherhood that would make an expanded Me Too movement, allied with the voices of the young, especially powerful.

There’s a name waiting for the movement. It’s at the top of the page. And I’m ready to follow.

Peace In Our Time?

Tags

America and Israel, American Embassy, diplomacy, Israel, Jerusalem, Middle East peace, Palestinians, Trump, two-state solution, war

(Note: In the following, I refer to Israel as if it were an undifferentiated block of granite. It is not. Not all Israelis agree with Israel’s hard-line Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. And not all Israelis are Jewish. About 1.5 million (ca. 20% of the total population) are Arabs (Palestinians), the majority, Muslims, but with a significant Christian and Druze minority. Their political views are at least as varied as those of Israel’s Jewish majority.)    

For decades, America has refused to officially acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and has consequently kept its embassy in Tel Aviv.

The Trump administration’s decision to reverse that position is not necessarily wrong simply because it breaks with tradition. Tradition can be good or bad. It’s wrong because it makes a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more difficult.

(And, incidentally, it ruins what was once a pretty good joke: Israeli: Why does America not move its embassy to Jerusalem? American: Because the road is uphill all the way and it’s much too heavy to push.)

If you look at the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinians, discounting the weight of allies on either side, Israel has a decided advantage: a powerful military; a strong economy; a fortress mentality.

The Palestinians have no military to speak of, though they can narrow the gap slightly with asymmetrical warfare, aka terrorism; their economy is weak and highly dependent on Israel; the only parity is their determination to have a homeland.

External factors skew the balance of power even more in Israel’s favor. America’s security guarantee to Israel, and its active security assistance, has long outweighed what the Arab and broader Muslim world could offer the Palestinians. Now, with the Middle East in turmoil, and the likelihood it will get worse, Israel’s enemies, who were once willing to go to war for the Palestinians, have much more pressing issues to deal with.

Under these circumstances, Israel has less reason than ever to negotiate a political settlement, which demands at least reasonable parity between the parties. Trump has given Israel all the more reason to say no.

(I respectfully disagree with commentary that suggests strengthening Israel’s hand, as Trump has done, would facilitate negotiations by allowing it to make concessions toward the Palestinians. That is not a negotiating position. It offers, at best, kinder, gentler terms of surrender.)

It has never been certain that a two-state solution is the answer. Among other issues, protecting the coastal center of Israel’s population from the nearby heights of a sovereign West Bank would be very difficult. Still, no one has come up with a better solution.

Trump may view his decision as assuring Israel’s security. It may be that Israel can go on for a decade or two or more shaking an iron fist, but the long term is not promising: a volatile Middle East could turn on Israel in any of a score of ways; the Palestinians will not go away and they will not forget — they have before them a perfect example of the power of memory, the eternal call of a sacred land, and the willingness to fight and die for it; and, perhaps most telling of all, they have reproductive power in a population race that an aging Israeli citizenry cannot match.

Trump may think he’s doing right by Israel. I think he’s dead wrong.

Bake Me a Cake as Unobjectionable as You Can

Tags

bakery, cake, constitution, fascism, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, gay marriage, morality, Supreme Court, swastikas

The Supreme Court is, today, hearing the case of a Denver baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding. He holds that his religious beliefs, which oppose gay marriage, are constitutionally protected, as is his cake-making, which, as an artistic expression, is a form of speech.

The gay couple sued on the grounds that his refusal violated anti-discrimination laws.

When I first heard about the case, I was struck dumb. I, too, was confronted with a very similar, painful, situation:

I was sitting quietly in my bake shop, watching the dough rise, when a strangely-dressed couple (male/female) came in. I am not a well-traveled person, but I judged by her outfit that she was a Hindu, and could see that the man was an Indian too.

They asked if I could make a cake for a celebration in honor of one of their deities, I forget who. I was initially concerned that they might want a design with ten or twenty arms, which would not demonstrate my skills in their best light.

But that wasn’t the case at all. They showed me a photo of the design they wanted and I just about croaked. It was a swastika!

I hesitated, trying to think how to approach this, but all I could come up with was, I’m sorry, but it’s too complicated.

Complicated?! the man protested, it is simplicity itself; just a cross, with right-angle extensions; perfectly symmetrical.

True, true, I said, it would be easy to fashion. The complication is a moral one. A swastika is a symbol of hatred and murder — anti-Semitic, anti-non-white, probably even anti-Hindu if it had come to that. My conscience wouldn’t allow my hands to fashion such an abomination.

But you don’t understand, the woman interjected, the swastika is an ancient symbol of goodness and auspiciousness, revered by Hindus, Buddhists and others, even westerners. It was stolen by the Nazis and made a symbol of hate, but they could not erase its real meaning. It is still, to us, a sacred symbol of peace and love.

I really didn’t know that, I said, but, even so, if somebody — one of my assistants, or worse, another customer — saw it, they wouldn’t know its real meaning and intent, and they’d assume it was for some racist or fascist rally. And even if I denied it and explained its true meaning and intent, they’d assume that was just a cover-up.

So, the man said, it’s not really a question of morality, but simply of protecting your reputation and your business.

No … and yes. If I’m thought to be advocating fascism, it certainly doesn’t help me make the case for fighting against it. And, yes, of course, I want to protect my business, which is my living, but also a means for doing good things for people. For example, I’m working on a cake for a gay wedding.

A gay wedding? the woman cried, that’s disgusting!

With that, I knew I couldn’t do business with them, and assumed the feeling was mutual. I thought the problem was solved. But the husband saw his opening.

Look, he said, you’re a businessman. You know you’ll lose some customers if we decided to spread the word you do gay weddings. At the same time, you know you’ll lose other customers if it gets out that you do swastikas. Do this one for us, and we won’t say anything about it or your gay cakes.

I thought seriously about it, but decided I couldn’t compromise my principles — gay marriage was right and a swastika, even if its origins were positive, was now as wrong as wrong could be. Furthermore, I reminded myself, I am an artist. Art that isn’t a genuine expression of the artist’s beliefs and feelings is simply dishonesty.

No deal, I told them, and they stormed out, muttering something about a lawyer.

That was a few years ago. Today, my bake shop is just a memory, but not because of the lawsuit. That got dropped. No, it was the icing on the cake, literally. I must have used a spoiled batch. Everybody got sick, including the groom and the groom. The health authorities shut me down.

I’m selling shoes now. A nice shoe with a good fit is artistic expression enough. Shoes are neutral, neither gay nor straight, neither progressive nor fascist. If the Indian couple should come in, I’m sure I could make a sale, as long as we keep the talk away from cakes.