Kim Davis Isn't Rosa Parks, She's Tyhpoid Mary

by Unknown 12:34 PM 0 comments civil rights gay marriage hatred homophobes kim davis politics religious freedom rosa parks typhoid mary

I was reading the news today and thought about Kim Davis and how she thinks she's today's Rosa Parks. She genuinely believes that history will look back on her as a historic civil rights activist.

Then it occurred to me that if she were remembered at all - she'd be likely to go down in history in much the way Typhoid Mary did.

For those who don't know, Typhoid Mary was an asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid Fever working as a cook. Typhoid Fever is transmissible via contaminated food - so her status as an asymptomatic carrier and a cook basically made her a mobile weapon of lethal disease.

Investigators found a trail of employment where she would work somewhere for a few weeks, an outbreak would happen, and she would immediately leave with no forwarding address. Several people she'd worked for died or their family members died as a result of the disease.

Doctors finally narrowed it down to her and discovered that the disease was harboured by her gall bladder and that removing it could cure her and make her safe. She refused to allow them to remove it, denying that she even had the disease. She was quarantined for three years, released only on the condition that she give up her profession as a cook and that she exercise basic hygiene to avoid transmission. She agreed, signing an affidavit to the effect.

Mary Mallon (aka Typhoid Mary) was also the holder of the
World's Most Effective Resting Bitch Face Award forty years running!

However, the job she procured as a laundress didn't pay as much as cooking, and she changed her name and returned to her former profession. Immediately more people became ill.

In essence, Typhoid Mary was informed that she was making people sick and killing them and adopted a, "You can't tell me what to do." attitude and continued on her merry way as a harbinger of disease.

If you inspire a PSA which could be retitlted How To Not
Be A Fucking Idiot, you have probably done something stupid.

It's cited as one of the cases which helped to decide what responsibility a public body has to protect its people. Certainly they couldn't force her to have her gall bladder removed - it was her body. Instead, the New York government did what it had to do, condemning Mary to isolation for the rest of her life on an island or until she'd consent to having the diseased organ removed. They knew they couldn't trust her. They knew that she would make people sick again.

This is how history will see Kim Davis - not as someone who brought about great change due to her heroic acts but as someone who brought about greater awareness through viciously wilful ignorance and denial.

(Check out the DF poll this week! It's been brought to my attention that my name is offensive (which I honestly hadn't really considered) and I'm proposing a slight name change. Don't start your shit about political correctness - I believe in treating all people with respect. Except assholes. Fuck those people.)