Access denied

2025 started with access denial for me.

On January 1, I was denied entry to our local LV temple because I had my service dog, Lenny, with me. Religious places are for some reason exempt from the ADA requirements to allow service animals in places of public access. I am not interested in patronizing a place that is not inclusive and consider this exclusion zone inappropriate for praying.

I went to watch Mumfasa with my daughter last weekend and the audio description headphones did not work for the 100th time. They replaced the headphones but the audio in those also had so much static that it was useless.

The news cycle of events elsewhere is not encouraging either with our new government actively gutting the fedral accessibility and inclusion programs in the name of being anti-woke. I am used to people giving accessibility lip service or just ignoring accessibility altogether but the leadership of the developed world actively dismantling accessibility programs was not something I expected to have on my “bingo” card, if you will.

I was chatting with someone in the cafe about all this and they asked “isn’t this infuriating?”

It is not infuriating. It just tells me there is more work to do. If anything, it redoubles my resolve and fuels my passion to follow the mission for IAccessible. Maybe we can make the world just a little more inclusive.