I am trying to figure something out, my friends.
I am trying to figure out what it means to be "tolerant", when it comes to same sex or as it's more dubiously known, :gay" marriage.
Yeah, it's one of THOSE blogs. Hope you have your safety glasses.
Before this goes any further, and since so many people in society today love to read between the lines, I support same-sex marriage. More to the point, I support the idea that the government should not have any say on who you marry and what being married means to your fiscal lives. It should be a true live-and-let-live situation.
It goes deeper than that with most people, unfortunately.
See, now it's become a status symbol of sorts to declare ones support for same sex marriage and shame/ridicule the people who either have no opinion (like me) or those people who stand by traditional marriage regardless of whether or not they base their objection on belief...and yes I do mean religion.
Growing up in Tulsa, known far and wide as the buckle of the Bible belt, this is a hot topic. Since most people here subscribe to the theory that the planet was created in a week the fact that someone said in further interpretation that marriage was supposed to be between a man and a woman to call it a hot topic could be understating things a bit.
Well, more than a bit.
Visually I compare it to the riot scene in "A Time To Kill" and when the boat finally goes under in "Titanic" all rolled into one if you were to hold my foot to the fire. The argument brings up a few questions in the deliberately apathetic persons mind, and it revolves around the idea of tolerance.
See, maybe I don't get the whole idea of how tolerance figures into this. Most of the arguments I have seen, and admittedly engaged in has revolved around how tolerant or intolerant people are on this subject. The line is drawn pretty specifically: if you are for same sex marriage you are considered tolerant and it is your "duty to expose those people who are against or have no opinion as bigots and haters" as one of those I have (chuckle) discussed the issue with.
I consider myself a tolerant person. I don't hate anything that does not deserve my hate because it is a waste of energy. Somehow that and my support of same sex marriage solely based on my strong belief in one's personal liberty somehow gets translated into hate for people who want to marry those of the same gender. I wish that someone would explain to me how that works. Argument is the basis for about 100% of the posts on social media, I realize, but it crosses the borders of stupidity when people use the term wrong especially when it comes to tolerance because if people were truly tolerant they would respect people's opinions instead of trying to change them by shame and ridicule.
It would seem to me, since the Supreme Court ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional and the ban on same sex marriage was struck down in Oklahoma...subject to the outcome of the appeal of said overruling in the 10th District Court...it was the start of a war. A war where if you were either against the idea of same-gendered marriage or if you were apathetic towards it. There have been times, in the more energetic and sickeningly melodramatic (chuckle) "discussions" where I have been called a bigot for NOT taking a stance either way. This accusation by people who are quick to do so, yet beat a hasty retreat behind the suddenly ambiguous veil of tolerance when the suggestion of intolerance and hate is leveled in their direction.
The problem I have there is that it's dishonest to be hateful then hide behind something like that and have reasonable refuge because most people do not want to stomp on that land mine. Given the nature of the topic and the impersonal nature of social media it's hard to blame people for not wanting to, but like I said before, it's dishonest...how can you consider yourself tolerant when you feel it is your "obligation" to wrongly accuse someone of intolerance, bigotry and whatever which is in itself an intolerant act?
In the end, one question keeps coming up:
I wish we all could be more like Rodney. Yeah, I just said that.
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