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Jewish World Review
January 8, 2010/ 22 Teves 5770
Embracing Bigotry — or Rejecting Bullying?
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In a former life, I worked in the music industry both as a player and in music production. As a result, I've had a ton of interaction with homosexuals, many of whom gravitate to the various entertainment industries to pursue careers. At one point, I played piano in a gay bar in Brooklyn where it was customary for the male patrons to dress up as women every Saturday night in what I used to refer to as "full battle regalia." For me, none of it was a big deal. I've never felt particularly uncomfortable being around gay people. That being said, if I were voting in Maine on election night, I would have stood with the majority and cast my ballot to reject same-sex marriage.
No doubt a lot of gays will never understand this. Some will accuse me of being homophobic. Frankly, I don't care what they think because I know who I am, and I harbor no animosity whatsoever against people based on something as trivial (in my mind) as their sexual orientation.
But I'll tell you what I don't like. I don't like activist jurists or state legislators who decide that the will of the people doesn't matter. I don't like those who insist that civil unions are a contemptible compromise, and that re-defining an institution known as "marriage"—which has enjoyed a five thousand year run of common understanding in every country and culture in the world—should be tossed aside to satisfy the whims of militant gays and their enablers. Militants who insist that any deviation whatsoever from their take on the subject constitutes bigotry.
It isn't' flying, boys and girls. In the thirty-one states where the people have had their say on the issue, same-sex marriage is oh-for-thirty-one.
Bigots, one and all?
I think not. There have been more than enough surveys to convince me that a lot, if not most Americans favor long-term stable relationships, regardless of sexual orientation. At the same time, many those same people have no patience for the activists who insist gay marriage is coming "whether you like it or not."
Why should they? A lot of Americans have had it up to their eyeballs with being talked down to by the "enlightened" souls who insist they own the franchise on "proper" thinking. And such resistance is by no means limited to the subject of gay marriage. All summer Americans were engaged in civil demonstrations signifying their displeasure with a Congress who insists they know what's better for America than Americans do regarding health care. Two years ago, many of those same Americans made their feelings about amnesty for illegal aliens equally clear.
How did the "enlightened" react? Americans were ridiculed. They were called "teabaggers," "Astro-turf phonies," "bigots," "racists," "xenophobes," "Nazis," etc., etc. Those whose respect for the will of the people begins and ends with kowtowing to militant dogma ran to the courts trying to obliterate that will.
And they still don't get it. In Maine, "No on 1" campaign manager Jesse Connolly pledged that same-sex marriage advocates "will not quit until we know where every single one of these votes lives."
No need to bother, Mr. Connolly. Those votes "live" in the hearts and minds of people who refuse to be bullied by anyone about anything —period. They live in the hearts and minds of people who might be tolerant of a particular lifestyle, but have no interest in its wholesale approval. That's their idea of compromise.
What's yours? All or nothing, and the will of the people be damned. Good luck with that.
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Comment on JWR Contributor Arnold Ahlert's column, by clicking here.
Previously:
01/06/10: Hanging by an Ideological Thread
01/04/10: Our ‘Wonderama’ Bureaucracy
12/30/09: A Day Off
12/28/09: Dangerous Myths
12/25/09: I, Me, Mine
12/23/09: A Very Harry Christmas
12/21/09: My Opinon
12/18/09: The Party of Repeal
12/15/09: Privileged Exemption
11/30/09: ‘Settled’ Science and Unsettled Children
11/30/09: American Sharia Law
11/23/09:The Trial (Travesty) of the Century
11/04/09: American Vampires and Their Political Enablers
11/01/09: ‘Opting Out’ of Insanity?
10/28/09: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer. Brain Required
10/26/09: Communism: Nazism With Better PR
10/21/09: Just Asking
10/16/09: Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
10/14/09: News you can use …
10/07/09: Incremental Insidiousness
10/05/09: MIA: Common Sense and Common Decency
09/30/09: Iran: Bad Options and Unpreparedness
09/21/09: Crying Racism: the Last Refuge of Scoundrels
09/11/09: 9/11 Cannot Be Sanitized
09/08/09: ‘Truthers’ and Consequences
09/01/09: A ‘Paper Trail’ Challenge for the Mainstream Media
08/31/09: Drowning in Amorality
08/26/09: The Republican Recovery Program
© 2009, Arnold Ahlert
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