OpEd:
On Not Tolerating Intolerance
November 12, 2009 by Kyle BradyTags: America, Beliefs, Bias, Intolerance, Politics, Religion
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The last few months in America have illuminated a large and worrisome bias like never before: citizens must respect the beliefs, lifestyles, opinions, and behaviors of others, so long as they’re legal – except when those same citizens have exclusionary beliefs that apparently allow them to criticize, condemn, vilify, smear, and generally ruin the lives or happiness of others.
This is not a law passed by Congress nor is it an Executive Order – it can’t even be found in the Constitution. The perplexing mix of “don’t criticize me, but I’ll criticize you” is based on a severe misinterpretation of a small part of the Constitution that has mutated over time into a weapon for these groups of people, most of whom have biases that can be traced to religious fundamentalism, racism, and other extremist perspectives that subjugate others for some benefit.
There is a line that divides tolerating another’s religion, political opinion, or personal beliefs, and tolerating intolerant behaviors – nowhere in modern, mainstream Christianity is there a provision that all other religions must be attacked and their people converted to a specific flavor of Christ followers, and yet this is what more and more fundamentalist Christians are coming to believe. Nowhere in any of the laws of the federal government does it state that a political party must follow the ideological whims of party leaders to the point of violence and chaos, and yet this is the behavior of the fringe-becoming-mainstream participants of the Republican Party.
These intolerant behaviors are either on a quick rise to prominence, or they are simply coming out of the dark depths, but the end result is the same: intolerance is becoming a core virtue for many Americans, and it is destroying society. In the case of the recent Fort Hood shooting, pundits were quick to jump to Islamic terrorism long before there was any public evidence to support this, simply on the premise of his name, and this is supposed to be acceptable? There is considerable media focus on the murders and destruction that those of Islamic belief create, and an extreme ignorance of the same behaviors from a more widespread religion inside America – where are the cries of religious fundamentalism when all-too-human doctors are murdered by Christians?
The tolerance of intolerance is reaching a critical breaking point, and the country, as a whole, must come to realize this. The situation is so advanced that the blatant lies and fear mongering that are spread by the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh are often treated as truth by legitimate networks, such as CNN, and this needlessly spreads their message to others. Congressional Republicans have acted on a campaign of negation and delay, using lies and misinformation to their own benefit, ever since President Obama’s arrival in the White House, and this is accepted as normal politics by many, trickling down to the polarized citizens who mimic such behaviors in their own daily lives.
All of this has resulted in banning gay marriage by referendum in state after state, a highly vicious and partisan political atmosphere, the rise of Creationism as a supposedly legitimate counter-theory to Evolution, the justification of a newfound and spreading racism, continued rash and negligent behaviors by the very banks that almost destroyed the interconnected globe, and considerably more. If America continues on its current path of tolerating intolerance, the next decade will see both civilian and military disaster on a scale unprecedented – Civil Rights laws were enacted for a reason, and yet some fundamental rights, or even common courtesies, are continually denied to some citizens.
The solution is clear: news networks must immediately cease reporting falsehoods of any kind, all forms of religion must be once again distinctly separated from the state in every fashion, and the political leaders of the country must rise to the occasion and enact legitimate consequences for those who do not follow the basic principles of sanity and legitimate tolerance. To fail to do so, soon, will result in an ever-deteriorating climate that will inevitably, truly tear the country apart.
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
