Retro Blog: Gays take another mainstream tradition

America has been through folks “coming out of the closet”, which then led to boisterous displays of gay pride. During this time America was force-fed a message of “tolerance”. Not to say forbearance and understanding is a bad thing in the least, but I personally hate being told how I should feel.

Gay pride eventually settled down a bit after the initial “shock value” wore off and then went to work on actually settling down.

The homosexual focus today seems to be squarely on marriage.

Once again, we are being told to be tolerant of this new look on an old institution.

Personally, I have no problem with this. If gay people want to be miserable too, why not let them?

I tend to think that if you are so insecure about your concept of heterosexual marriage that it would be threatened by what someone else does with their marriage, maybe you should focus more on fixing your own particular problems.

Did the fact that there are vegetarians ever really affect your omnivorous meal choices?

I really couldn’t care much less and think this countrywide gay marriage kerfuffle is pointless.

Besides, gay marriage is an inevitability anyway.

Why would I say that?

Because lawyers run our country and they have seen the money-making possibilities in gay prenuptial agreements, gay divorces and the like.

But that, for legal reasons, would just be my opinion.

Anyway, tolerance has become a byword in today’s society and, as much as I chafe at being told how to feel, I realize that the overall idea is a good one.

That has been my view until I got an article emailed from my step-father the other day (see Paul, I do read these).

The article was about Philip Monk, a heterosexual Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force with a 19-year service record and his commander, an openly gay woman.

Apparently, Sergeant Monk, also an evangelical Christian, was asked by his lesbian commander what his views on same-sex marriage were.

The story goes that when Sergeant Monk declined to answer her question in an attempt to avoid division, he was relieved of duty.

If this is true, then there you go.

Gays have taken one more sacred institution from heterosexuals.

I thought hypocrisy was the one thing they might not want to take.

Gays generally preach open-mindedness for their lifestyles but, at least possibly in this case, refuse to be tolerant toward views derived from religious beliefs.

Shocking.

Here I thought heterosexuals had the market cornered on believing one thing and doing another.

If you look at it, religion was first with the whole tolerance thing. You know, “love thy neighbor”, “turn the other cheek”, “ do unto others”, and “judgment is (the Lord’s)”.

The instructions given are to be tolerant of others despite what you think their faults are, to forgive them anyway and to not judge them in the first place.

I don’t seem to remember “suffer not a gay guy to marry”.

Maybe I missed that day in Sunday school.

I really don’t have a lot of room to talk because I have been hypocritical way more than a handful of times in my life.

But I am trying to improve.

Gays: I expected better.

Everyone else: Let’s not try to compete to see who can be more hypocritical. It’s not a trophy anyone should want on their mantle.

The real message here, if there is one, is to try to envision yourself in someone else’s situation (even if that makes you shudder) and treat them like you would to be treated in that situation.

If you are mad now, I have an exercise that might bring a smile to your face: Try to imagine a flamingly gay guy trying to empathize with someone like, oh say, Rush Limbaugh. I think the gay guy would probably have a stroke trying to emulate Rush’s certitude.

No smile yet?

Try reversing it. See if you can get your right winger past the flying body parts in his head to the realization there is an actual person there (I imagine it like a video game).

It can work people. Even representatives of the KKK sat down at the same table with folks from the NAACP here in Wyoming recently.

 

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