Look at this article. Overlook the fact that Gerald Allen either thinks that Hammet is great literature or else doesn't know the actual title of "Hamlet" and is confused about it being by Shakespeare. Move past that, obviously I have.
Now that you've read the stuff, including such lovely lines as
"Traditional family values are under attack," Allen informs me. They've been under attack "for the last 40 years". The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal libarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children". We have to "protect Alabamians".you can see why I'm mad. Tolerance is not about degrading morals, it's about upholding them. Not practicing prejudice against others is one of the most moral things you can do. Why is homosexuality considered a sin, because some guy in the bible didn't want to have sex with his dead brother's wife? OK, I can see how that's interpreted as masturbation being a sin, but isn't it taken just a little too far? All sexual activity that isn't directly intended to cause pregnancy is a sin? It never says that! Come down off the high horse, people!
And how many homophobes actually ever read the bible, anyway? Do they know why they're even supposed to look down on it? And who decided that? I bet most of them don't! They just feel icky, and lo, it's a sin to do the icky stuff! Well guess what? Lots of stuff about Catholicism makes me feel icky, like the whole "drink of my blood" thing, but you don't see me saying that we should dig a hole in the ground and put all of the writings about Catholic people in the ground!
Intolerance is intolerable. Every person on this planet has an equal right to live their lives on it. Being a homosexual is not an agenda. There's not some manifesto that all gay people have read explaining how to turn everyone else in the world gay. That reminds of the Mormons, who actually *do* have a mission to turn everyone else in the world Mormon, but I digress. One of the things I like best about America is that it truly is an example of how different kinds of people with different beliefs and traditions really can live side-by-side. No one denies the Shakers their right to live their Shaker lives, even if we don't want to live that way. Every day people who love members of their own gender go about shopping for groceries, or paying their taxes, or going to the movies exactly the way that people who love members of the opposite gender do. We don't have to eliminate other people's ways of life in order to protect our own. Being that close-minded is unimaginable to me, and that's why the people who say that we need "protection" from people, or books, or TV shows, well, they make me hopping mad.
OK, forget my liberal leanings, let's look at this another way: all you people who believe in God, whom amongst us did God create?
Everyone. And he calls us all his children.
No comments:
Post a Comment