Just Write: The Gay Agenda, Part 3
Hum. Turns out there was supposed to be a graduation ceremony, too. Well. Who knew? Thankfully, the commencement speech has been posted, and the speaker was most articulate.
Up until now, you've been coddled in this liberal arts college, and let's face it, when you put liberal together with arts, we're talking homo. Great big gobs of gay sprouting out of every nook and crannie.
My, what an ... arresting image that puts into the mind. Tell that to the right people, and you could close down every liberal arts college in the country within the year.
And, then, of course, there's this ...
Before I retire back to my Eames lounger, let me leave you with some final advice. If you ignore everything else I have said to you today, and I urge you to do so, please reflect on these words and take them to heart, because I mean them sincerely and believe in them with every shiny black shard of my soul. Treat everyone with kindness, love, and understanding.
From here forward, it doesn't matter how you've been treated, or what names you've been called, or how much anger you've managed to swallow under a sugary coating of tolerance. Tolerance is an ugly, horrid, hateful word. Tolerance means, "I tolerate you." It means that I am allowed to continue to believe the wrong, ignorant, backwards lies I have always been told about you but that I can manage to sit here across the table from you and not take my steak knife and plunge it into your heart. It's been said that tolerance is the most we can ever hope for, and we should be glad of it where we find it.
Do not accept it, ladies and gentlemen. And do not spread it like the plague that it is. Stop tolerating, and start understanding. Ask questions, and listen to the answers. Explain yourself, and listen to explanations. And avoid the simple, gated, picket-fenced sidewalk of tolerance and move down the rocky, shaky, strenuous path of understanding.
In all seriousness ... that seems an unnecessarily narrow view of the concept of tolerance. The OED devines the word so: The action or practice of tolerating; toleration; the disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions or practices of others; freedom from bigotry or undue severity in judging the conduct of others; forbearance; catholicity of spirit. Understanding does not exclude simple tolerance, and vice versa. Frankly, I may understand your predilictions and desires regarding some thing or another perfectly well, and still quite dislike them. That doesn't mean necessarily that I dislike you or feel the urgent desire to fire you out of a cannon into the nearest wall. (To use the simplest and most obvious example: I actually understand and even like most of the straight people I know. Doesn't mean that I have the least urge to emulate that particular aspect of their behavior.) "Tolerance" would seem to simply allow another to be whatever they are, without interference and without condemnation. After all, most people tolerate a great deal in this life that they understand yet dislike, not least their various friends' quirks and foibles.
And all that said ... "boundless, unfettered love and understanding" would be better for everyone, wouldn't it?
Posted by iain at July 23, 2003 03:08 PMComments
T'would indeed.
Posted by George at July 25, 2003 04:37 AM
