So, it turns out I'm a hardened criminal...

Did you know that I was a criminal for six year?

It's true.

For six whole years I blatantly, if not knowingly, broke a law.  I mean, it's not like I bought myself a mask and a crowbar and decided that a life of crime was the way to go, I had no idea what I was doing was even illegal, but then they do say that ignorance is no excuse.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it here before but I'm a Pagan.  I have been since I was about ninteen or twenty years old when I first realised that pretty much everything I already believed fit into the beliefs of Paganism.  I remember reading about it in a book my brother had given to me and thinking "Oh, I'm a Pagan ... well now it all makes sense".

The only problem was that Paganism wasn't made legal in the state I live in until 2001.

So there's a good six or seven years that I was practicing an illegal religion, and I had no idea.  Hell, it never even occurred to me that there might even BE illegal religions!  No one ever said anyting to me about it, and it's not like the Pagan community was keeping themselves hidden away or anything, so I had absolutely no idea I was doing anything illegal ... until I read about those laws being repealed in a magazine.

It was a bit of a shock, I must say.

I have to imagine that Keith London, a city official in Florida, had a similar reaction when someone tried to have him charged with living in sin, another old law that no one had gotten around to removing.  I mean seriously, who even uses the expression "living in sin" in this day and age? Were they tutting about the scandal of it all while they were churning their butter and hand sewing a dress for the Sunday church social?

His response was, as you would expect from a city official, a very politely worded screw you and the horse you rode in on.

I can't imagine the complaint got very far, but I still think it's great that he was willing to stand up and say "no" in the face of an unjust law, no matter how outdated and unused.  I like to think that if someone  had turned up at my door and insisted I renounce my beliefs or face charges ... I would have told them to go jump too.   No one is going to tell me what I can and can't believe in!

Yep, I'm just a rebel I guess.

But don't tell anyone, okay?  I'm far too delicate to survive in jail.

By the way, don't forget to go and enter if you'd like to win the set of "Don'ts for..." books I'm giving away in celebration of Delightfully Ludicrous surviving to make it to it's six month anniversary.  Come on!  That's like 50 years old in blog years!!!