It Comes From The Top
So, you may have heard about the outbreak of teen suicides linked to their sexual orientation during this last week. These, of course, are the ones we KNOW about... I always wonder how many suicides (teen and otherwise) are linked to LGBT issues that go unknown...
Anyway, yesterday on facebook, I linked to a petition that is at the bottom of this post. In that facebook post, I said, "How I'd like to bully these spineless bully's parents. I can probably find them at a "tea party", steeping in their ignorance and bigotry."
So, a close cousin of mine wrote to me to protest my generalizations. I always appreciate hearing from him. We have very similar senses of humor, but he usually pushes it and makes my jaw drop further. And then I just burst out laughing with a underlying sense of guilt. He ALWAYS makes me laugh and I love him. But politically, we're on opposite ends of the spectrum. As I am with my oldest brother and my parents. However, we've arrived at an understanding where MOST of the time (not always) we respectfully state our points and move on.
We love one another more than our opinions.
Well yesterday, my cousin wrote to me about my generalizations and said "Ignorance and bigotry have been around MUCH longer than the Tea Party, and are deep rooted into many people regardless of their political affiliation." And of course, he's right.
I wrote back and said "I agree with you, ignorance and hate have obviously been around much longer than the tea party. I'm not insinuating that they haven't been."
And I continued, "At a basic level, I understand the premise for the tea party - less gov't involvement, and fiscal responsibility - who DOESN'T want that? But sadly, I believe that the tea party is operating on something else... And these homophobic "bullies" and some of society's intolerant view of homosexuality is driving kids to commit suicide. And the intolerant, delusional views of the tea party aren't helping matters. They liken Obama to Hitler, when you KNOW that socialistic ideals are very different from fascism. I didn't see these same people getting upset with W's administration for whittling away our rights and inching us closer to a fascist state...
"Shit rolls down hill. And the tea party's origins were something to be admired, but they've gone way off track and that's too bad. Instead of creating a party that might attract sensible discussion and lead to more strong political parties in the U.S., they're further polarizing people.
"I know what it's like to feel isolated as a kid and teenager. I can't express to you the immensity of the self-loathing. I wanted my life to end on a regular basis.
"To me, the tea party represents hatred. Not healthy dialogue based in fact.
"I think we need strong election reform and a STRONG multi-party system. But for what should be obvious reasons, I'm not jumping on-board with the tea party. They're not "patriots", but hate mongers in poor disguise."
My cousin was right about my sweeping generalizations. And he's certainly right about ignorance and hate being rampant regardless of political affiliations.
I guess what I'm driving at is when there's intolerance coming from adults, whoever they are, there's BOUND to be with their children. And this is causing a circle of hatred, and thus, violence...
The year is 2010... think about that, 2010 is almost over. Doesn't that year still look like the future to you? It does to me. And the way we're treating one another seems to be slipping... devolving into something mundane and ridiculous. Into the world of the un-evolved. As though hatred is strength. As though intolerance is something to be admired. As though dogma from organized religion trumps a higher spiritual existence.
They'd nail Jesus Christ to the cross all over again.