WHAT TEXAS FRIENDSHIP DAY (8-2-09) DOES NOT MEAN OR IMPLY OR INVOLVE

I get the impression that some Texans regard the upcoming "Texas Friendship Day" on Sunday, August 2, 2009, as a day when they are somehow expected to like or love all other Texans.

I would like to take this opportunity to respond to that understandable perception or concern on the part of many Texans.

The "Texas Friendship Day" (H.R. 3132) resolution by State Rep. Dawnna Dukes that was approved by the Texas House of Representatives on June 1, 2009, makes no reference to any such expectation of liking or loving all other Texans.

Many law-abiding Texans, after all, are victimized by the felony crime of stalking perpetrated on them by one or more law-breaking Texans (often in a context involving anonymous or profane communications or verbalized death threats or noise pollution knowingly and deliberately and ruthlessly inflicted on the victim) in an outrageously injurious and intrusive manner. It would be hideously perverse and outrageously immoral and unconscionable for any chamber of the Texas Legislature in Austin to expect the Texan victims of stalking on Texas Friendship Day to express "appreciation" or "affection" or "admiration" or "affinity" for any of the criminal persons who subjected those law-abiding Texans to stalking against their wishes.

Those law-abiding Texans, for personal safety reasons and moral reasons and legal reasons, will of course choose to exclude any and all stalkers from their own "Texas Friendship Day" celebration.

The wholesome intent of the Texas House resolution, and I quote from it directly, is to: "promote a healthy dialogue about personal friendships and enrich the lives of all participants."

The resolution also states that the Texas House of Representatives wishes to "encourage all Texans to reflect on the meaning of friendships in their own lives."

It is clear from the wording of the resolution that the Texas House of Representatives is referring only to mutual-consent personal friendships. Compelled or required relationships (or any form of illegal and Unconstitutional relationship based on bondage or enslavement or involuntary servitude, for that matter), which by definition are not freely-chosen and are not strictly-mutual-consent personal relationships, appear to be excluded from the scope of this legislative resolution. Nor does the resolution anywhere in its wording appear to indicate that ANY Texan resident on Texas Friendship Day is at all expected to associate in any way with any person whom that Texan has already rejected from his own life---or with any person who already rejected himself, for that matter.

I would also like to reassure all Texans that you can fully celebrate and fully enjoy "Texas Friendship Day" even if you choose to befriend one total honest and law-abiding and conscientious and privacy-rights-respectful and honorable mutual-consent personal friend of yours from your own current life in Texas by treating that individual to breakfast, lunch, dinner, or tea and conversation on Sunday, August 2, 2009.

Nowhere in the Texas Friendship Day resolution approved by the Texas House does it state that you have to or that you are expected to contact or do something special on August 2, 2009, for all of your personal friends that day. Nor are you required or expected to do anything nice for ANY of your friends that day, since the Texas Friendship Day resolution is a non-binding resolution that was approved by voice vote of the Texas House of Representatives.

I would also like to reassure all Texans that this Texas House resolution's scope appears to exclude professional relationships, since Texas Friendship Day is promoting strictly-mutual-consent and personal friendships.

Some might point out that "you can be a coworker or colleague of someone and still choose, along with that coworker or colleague, to become a mutual-consent and lasting personal friend of that individual."

That can, of course, occur. However, I would like to point out that many of those work-related or career-related "friendships" prove to be very short-lived, and limited to the time period in which the two individuals involved are employed at the same workplace or employed in the same career field. Once an individual selects a different employer or a different career field, many of those career-related "relationships" end very abruptly.

Official information about the "Texas Friendship Day" resolution (H.R. 3132) that was approved by the Texas House of Representatives on June 1, 2009, can be found at either or both of the following links:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/HR03132F.htm

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=81R&Bill=HR3132