We went to flower shows all the time. Beautiful roses there. All colors. White, red, yellow. Roses are the best and most beautiful flowers. We just think blue is the best. :) Sometimes we won awards for our blue roses, sometimes not. We showed them off every chance we got. We gave to weddings and sometimes, sadly, to funerals. We had blue flowers at birthdays and anniversaries. We were so proud to have our blue roses in with all the differents kinds of flowers and colors. Blue Roses.So, one day, we had this really nice lady come to us and said she wanted to join our club. We were glad to have her. We like all types of people that like roses. She had a garden. She had her own watering can. So we signed her up and all was good. She came to a meeting or two without a rose but that's ok. Our club is to be with others and share your love of blue roses. It was the good feeling that blue roses create that we were getting together for anyway.
Then it happened. We had gotten together for our usual Wednesday meeting. That really nice lady had shone up. She had brought an orange rose. Let me tell you, that was one great rose. I mean, it was perfect. The yellowish orange starting on the bottom flowing into the bright orange at the top of the petals was outstanding. The petals didn't have a blemish on them. The stem was the perfect green. One of the best examples of a rose I had ever seen.
But it was not blue. Now everybody hemmed and hawed about how nice it was and how well tended it had been, but the fact was, it was not blue. Nobody said anything to her at the meeting but at coffee after, a couple of us brought up the fact that she had brought an orange rose to the Blue Rose club. We agreed that although orange roses are indeed a great flower, this was the Blue Roses club. We also agreed to ask her not to attend if she was going to continue to bring different color roses. She was still welcome but we all wanted to stick with blue. It seemed pretty straight forward. I mean, We are the Blue Roses. Only blue roses were at our meetings. Posters of coloring techniques on the walls. So if you would like to see other colors of roses, then by all means, go and see them but not here. At least that is what we thought. So we let her know.
A few weeks later I get a letter in the mail. From some government agency. Office of Discrimination or something like that. I am wondering why did they write me? Maybe some blue roses for one of their 'conferences'? haha Nope. It seems that the Blue Roses club practices discrimination. What? Well the lady with the orange rose says we violated her rights by not allowing her color rose at the meetings. What? I am not sure how we did that. What is the name of the club? Was anybody confused as to the nature(pun) of our club. Did she miss the posters and lectures about the color of our roses?
Well, that office says since we allow roses at our meetings we have to allow all colors of roses. Although we promote the color blue, the law says we have to allow all colors so that each has equal rep. I am not sure I understand. We like blue roses. We like to hang around people who like blue roses. Although liking other colors, we like to spend some time with just blue roses. And we are wrong? And why would she want to join our club when she could just easily join the orange rose group? (I wouldn't go to it but she could.) What happened to our rights?
Well, we tried to talk to that office about it. Explained our side. Not hurting anybody and all. Free association, birds of a feather, that sort of thing. But the government has more money and apparently, a lot of free time, so we were judged to be wrong and told what we will do in the future. We kinda figured that would happen. Government and all.
We changed the bylaws and allowed anybody with any color rose in. Just wonderful. All the colors of roses and after awhile they let in other flowers as well. But the club lost sight of the original feeling, the love, for the blue rose.The whole reason for the club was gone. I, and a few of my friends stopped going. It just was not the same club anymore. It was not our club any more. But people's rights to have different colors are well secured, so I should be glad.
Eventually the club was sued by the nice lady. Emotional distress caused by the way the club had treated her color of the rose, she said. She claimed that she could no longer grow orange roses after that. She won and the club had to fold due to bankruptcy. She won twice, but destroyed it all. Nice lady. (I heard she is trying to join the Boy Scouts now.)
My friends and I still meet with our beloved blue roses. The government can't really stop that. We just don't tell anyone and we don't call it a club.
If we did we might 'offend' someone. Couldn't do that, could we?
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