The Internet is for Adults
Recently, a fellow who is also a member of my online discussion forum, http://www.paxbaculum.com , and who previously sent me a very expensive gift simply because he’s a generous guy, unfriended me. He did so because I dared to say, and to write in my WND column, that I do not support gay marriage.
http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/liberals-rape-of-constitution/
Well, I don’t.
Now, if you’re one of my friends and you happen to be gay — there are more than one of you — that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go to your wedding, bring you a nice gift, and wish you well. (And I would mean it.) It doesn’t mean I won’t treat you and your spouse, or your union, with respect. If you’re my friend I accept you as you are. I don’t judge you (much). I like you, damn it, or we wouldn’t be friends. Just because I, personally, would not choose to have our government lend official sanction to something that you, by contrast, want recognized, does not mean that I wish to deny you your civil rights. It means I disagree on the definition of those rights. I am not a dictator. I am one voter with one vote. My opinion does not determine the course of your life, nor should you behave as if it does.
Where marriage is concerned I’d rather see the government out of the marriage business and leave such unions up to private religious organizations… but that’s because I reject a lot of accepted political paradigms in favor of a much more objective, capitalist model. In other words, I don’t support [proposition whatever] because I reject the premises on which it is based. If I personally believe that such-and-such a behavior isn’t “normal,” that doesn’t mean I dislike you or want bad things for you. I’m not so “normal” myself in other areas of life. But that’s not the point.
Politically, I’m a libertarian. Socially, I’m a conservative. Frankly, I’m a pretty old-fashioned guy in many respects, and I’m coming to terms with that. About the time I visited my childhood church because my mother was being ordained as an elder, and I realized the service had become too informal, too “modern” for my tastes, I was struck by the sudden realization that I’m now a curmudgeon. I’m one step removed from telling you kids to get off my lawn. Well, okay. I can live with that. But I’m also a couple of generations removed from my grandparents’ generation, the generation of WWII, and I’m a freaking hippie compared to my grandfather, whose stern but consistent principles I always respected.
What this means is I don’t give a damn what you do with your personal life. I won’t treat you shabbily because of it. I don’t think less of you as a person. You can be a squealing, whining liberal and I’ll still be your friend if you’ll be mine, and we can agree on the fact that our politics differ. If I quietly think you’re wrong about things, this doesn’t mean I don’t respect you. It just means I disagree with you.
Unlike the scions of the left, I do not interpret disapproval of certain lifestyles, chosen or inborn, as “HATRED.” I think believing that someone “hates” you because they don’t agree with your opinions or your outlook is arrogant and childish. It invests in you far too much credit and significance in the minds and lives of others. I do not define you as what you do. You are not your sexual identity, in my mind. You can be a freaking furry or a Real Doll pervert if you want and it makes no difference to me. I’m just not going to go to Burger King with you while you’re wearing a squirrel suit or driving your silicon doll around in the passenger seat of your car.
When you express opinions online, and especially when you encounter someone like me — someone whose avocation is the presentation of firmly held and ardently expressed opinions — you’ve got a choice. You can accept that other people disagree with you, or you can wrongly believe that any difference of opinion is some kind of affront, some personal insult that you cannot abide. While I will admit that at times I have “unfriended” people who never seemed to express anything but sentiments with which I disagree, as a matter of principle and in terms of how I treat other human beings in real life, I do not begrudge you your politics. To remain among the online community of those who engage in sociopolitical discourse, however, you will have to have the maturity to offer others the same respect.
Grow up or get off the grid. Those are the choices.
