The Cow And I

Repressed Beef

I attended a seminar this afternoon on RLUIPA, the Religious Land Uses and Institutionalized Persons Act. Essentially, according to this federal statute, the government cannot substantially burden one's free exercise of religion. In imposing any necessary burden, the government shall do so only by the least restrictive means. We folks in the planning profession get all frothy about these kinds of screw-local-zoning laws, as if the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment wasn't enough.

But I digress. You see, I felt my own kind of persecution today. Aside from my religious faith, I am engaging in another kind of spiritual conduct these days, not religious per se, but spiritual nonetheless: the hedonistic adoration of beef, and the recordation of my transcendent experience through photography. I felt extremely fearful of pulling out my camera in front of all these professionals. How would they react? Would they label me the "Other"? Would my name make its way onto some list, to be checked once in a while, perhaps one day to be highlighted ominously with a red marker? My spiritual beef experience was clearly being repressed here.

And so, this incident taught me a lesson. After all of that angst and one unphotographed, barely-enjoyed five-ounce big beefy sandwich later (376.15 total), I finally understood what RLUIPA was all about. I mean, let a guy take pictures of his own meat, for Pete's sake, especially when he gets a rise out of it!