I have 13 tattoos and 10 piercings. That alone disqualifies me from a number of potential jobs. Why?

I do not have a criminal record. I am a hard worker. I have job experience and a clean driving record. Soon, I will have a degree and, overall, I am a very nice person.

On paper, people like me look like an ideal candidate for a job. But we have tattoos. I want to know why that seems to be the most important thing some employers see.

Some employers want to hire employees who look “professional.” How does someone look professional?

Put on nice business clothes? We can do that. Look well kempt and well rested? We can do that too. What is it about tattoos and piercings that makes a person look less professional? I don’t know, and I don’t think the people who might turn job applicants down because of tattoos even know.

Turning people down for jobs because of various body modifications is entirely outrageous. It is morally and professionally wrong to base decisions like that on purely superficial reasons.

If a company refused to hire people who are blonde, it would be discrimination. If a company only hired skinny people, it would be illegal. Why is it okay, then, to discriminate against people who have tattoos?

Why should people have to base their own life decisions on someone else’s closed mindedness? The decision to cover our bodies with tattoos is just that- our decision.

But then we have to worry about whether or not future employers like them or not. It is entirely unfair. Why should other people get to dictate the way anyone chooses to look?

If people want to get tattoos, they should be able to do so without worrying whether or not they will be able to get a job later on down the road. Tattoos are permanent.

They cannot be taken off at work and put back on later. Once they are there, the ink cannot simply be washed away.

Tattoos seem to label people as delinquents or just bad people in general. We are not felons, thieves or thugs. We just like tattoos. As simple as it sounds, that’s the truth- we think they are pretty.

The whole reason I have tattoos is just because I like them, which is difficult for some people to understand. I don’t want to look tough or anything like that. I just want to be colorful, and I believe I have a right to. And so does everyone else.

I am fortunate enough to work for a company that allows me to express myself and look the way I choose, but many people are not so lucky. People with tattoos do not work any less than others do.

Ink doesn’t make us bad people. We are who we are, with or without tattoos.

Religion can be spoken about freely, yet we tread softly when publically mentioning it.

But, the hardest idea to grasp is that having the right to spread religious awareness is certainly not the same as pushing beliefs on others.

While people reserve the right to practice religious freedom and to speak without restraint about any faith they choose, forcing others to listen isn’t freedom of speech; it’s harassment.

There are over 127 major religions and seven billion people on earth with seven billion different views of God. Some love Him, some fear Him, some question His existence and some are still searching for Him.

Some will decide that God plays no role in the trials and tribulations of life, while others will find faith the moment they see their newborn child take the first breath of being.

Whether we discover where we spiritually belong in a pew on Sunday morning or on a lonely drive with no destination, the journey to finding or forgetting God is what determines our views. We can’t be told what and who to believe in, or to even believe in anything at all.

What we learn, who we meet and the challenges we face are what we remember when we stand before Him, not the church members that knock on our front doors, or the people that stand in the quad condemning us all to hell.

And if the church goer at your front door changes your perspective, let them. Be baptized in one church, change your mind, and be baptized in another. Let what you learned in biology class make you question evolution and the powers above.

Learning from life experiences and questioning God’s ways isn’t sin; it’s human. It’s human to change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually when physical surroundings change. It’s human to simply be curious and indecisive.

Faith only exists because there are people that believe strongly enough in it to make it a reality and a way of life. Without doubters and differences, the strength of religion would never have anything to be measured against.

Because of that, religion without true belief is weak.

Never practice out of habit, don’t follow just because your parents or friends do, and don’t ever think one religion is superior to another. In a time that seems to have the explanation for everything in a test tube or on a database, people believing in any God at all is a miracle in itself.