PARIS (Rooters agency) – The French government today announced plans to ban the wearing in public of shoes, sandals, or other footwear.
The announcement is the government’s first considered response to last week’s sudden public appearance of the Shodden. This previously unknown religious sect burst on to the world stage with the claim that it had several million followers in the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, Australia, Antarctica, and possibly several others.
While news media are still trying to learn the finer details of the Shodden’s beliefs, the fundamentals appear to be that God was wearing shoes when he created man in his own image. Therefore, in the Garden of Eden, Adam wore shoes (or maybe sandals). It seems that there is a dispute within the Shodden as to whether Eve was also created wearing shoes, or whether Adam had to make them for her after she burst forth from his rib.
In any case, according to Shodden scripture, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s commandment and were banished from the Garden of Eden, they were required to leave their footwear behind – a symbol that they had abandoned the right to tread on the Serpent (Satan). So, for an eon, or possibly two or three of them, the human race went barefoot.
It was only when the founder of the Shodden religion, Saint Bawqob Brown, opened the road to the return to Eden, that footwear became possible, and indeed obligatory, for the Blessed – a symbol of their acceptance of the true faith.
The French government seems to have been caught by surprise by the arrival of the Shodden (actually, we all were). “We don’t get involved in religion,” was the first official response.
Things changed as soon as it sank in that footwear was compulsory in the Shodden religion. “We are a secular state,” said the Minister for Propriety. “We support freedom of religion, including prohibiting a religion imposing any obligations on its followers. Except Catholicism, of course.
“But if shoes or sandals are made compulsory by a religion, then obviously, wearing those objects becomes an offense against our secular state. Especially if you’re a woman – because of Eve, you know.”
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