Once there was a daycare center with dozens of little children. The teacher at the daycare center was named Keith. Keith was a lazy child-neglecting bastard, but we’ll get to that later on.

One of the activities the daycare children loved to play was Bounceball, a hilariously fun game that involved, you guessed it, bouncing a big ball between two children. The only thing was, in order to play Bounceball, the two children playing had to fit a few standards: one of them had to have blue eyes, and the other had to have brown eyes. Sure, you could bounce a ball between yourselves, but unless you had two blue eyes and two brown eyes between you, by definition it wasn’t Bounceball. Keith had made this rule up years ago, and generations of children played by it.

One day Lauren, who had blue eyes, met a new girl at daycare, Karen. Lauren and Karen quickly became the best of friends, and when they went outside for recess, they decided to play Bounceball. They went to the equipment check-out to check out a bouncy ball, but there they ran into a problem: Karen had blue eyes!

“You can’t play Bounceball,” said the boy at the equipment check-out. “You both have blue eyes!” A crowd of children quickly formed around the group to watch.

“But that’s not fair!” cried Lauren. “We’re just as good friends as anyone else. Karen can’t help it that she has blue eyes, and I can’t help it that I have blue eyes!”

“That doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “Keith says if you both have blue eyes, you can’t play Bounceball.” Most of the children in the crowd nodded their heads in agreement. But one kid looked unconvinced.

“Wait a minute,” said the kid. “Are you sure that’s what Keith said?”

“Yeah,” chimed in another kid. “I was talking to him the other day, and he said there’s nothing wrong with two blue-eyed kids playing.”

“I heard him say there was nothing wrong with two brown-eyed kids playing, but two blue-eyed kids is just ridiculous,” said another.

“WAIT,” cried the kid in charge of equipment check-out. “I go by the rules I heard. And the rules I heard state that you have to have a blue-eyed kid and a brown-eyed kid to play Bounceball. Period.”

“That’s discriminatory!” cried Lauren. Several kids nodded in agreement.

The equipment kid rolled his eyes. “No, it’s not discriminatory. You can play Bounceball all you want, you just have to find someone with brown eyes. You can still play with Karen, you just can’t play Bounceball with her.”

“But wait a minute,” said Karen, looking confused. “I saw Keith just the other day – and he told me that anyone could play Bounceball.”

The kids’ gathering erupted in confusion.

“I want to play ball with my brown-eyed best friend!”

“What about me? I have green eyes!!”

Finally one of the quieter kids from the back row stepped forward. “PEOPLE! Please be quiet. Now, there’s an honest amount of confusion here as to what Keith said, to whom, and when. It seems to me that the most fair thing to do, with what Keith said not being absolutely known, and us not being able to find Keith anywhere to ask him, is for the official equipment leaser to lease bounceballs to everyone who wants one. That way, if you believe in the traditional form of Bounceball, you can stick to it. But also, if you want to play Bounceball with your friend who has the same color eyes as you, you can.

“Since we don’t know the truth about what Keith said, it makes more sense for us to relax the definition of ‘Bounceball,’ or at least operate the official equipment leasings fairly even if we keep the official name of ‘Bounceball’ only for friends who have opposite color eyes.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” said the equipment kid. “The definition of ‘Bounceball’ is for kids with different eye colors!”

“Hey, what about people with hazel eyes?” called one nervous-looking girl.

“No,” said the other kid patiently, “What you’re saying is that we should limit the possibility of Bounceball for everyone because of the rule you thought you heard Keith lay down. What I’m saying is that we allow any pair of kids to play with the bounceball itself, whether or not we call it “Bounceball.” Extend the same rights to every pair of friends to play with the material ball, and leave the name out of things.”

“Hey, that makes sense!” said some of the kids.

“Hooray!” shouted all the kids with green, hazel, and black eyes.

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In case you really need this:

Daycare center equals: the state

Equipment lease equals: legal rights

Keith equals:varying ideas on the “Truth”: God, other gods, philosophy, etc.

Bounceball equals:marriage

Eye colors equal: what the hell do you think?!

Addendum: A week after this incident Keith was arrested for felony child-neglect. He is now facing a class-action lawsuit by all the parents of the children at the daycare, plus a subpoena to testify as to what exactly constitutes “Bouceball.”