Intolerant

This whole chicken fiasco has me riled up. It's too long for a status update or Tweet so I'm taking to my much neglected blog.

I've heard all day from the wingers standing up for the Christian Col. Sanders' free speech by waiting in line to buy a crappy chicken sandwich. Do they realize it's not one tiny bit about his free speech? It hasn't a thing to do with what he said. It has to do with large sums of money donated to thinly veiled hate groups. But I'm not the only one trying to get that message across. They just stick their thumbs in their ears..."la la la la can't hear you." Whatever.

It's actually the "You're only tolerant of people when they share your beliefs" argument that has me so mad tonight. I've heard many on my side of the debate say that they defend the CEO's right to say the things he did and donate where he sees fit. I don't. I don't tolerate it. I don't tolerate it in the same way I don't tolerate Fred Phelps and his gang. I don't tolerate Nazis and hate mongers and racists and bigots. And, fortunately, most of our society doesn't tolerate those things either. And we shouldn't. We shouldn't tolerate hate. Society is better because we won't tolerate it. Just because someone uses their religion to say that some people in America don't deserve equal rights and privileges under the law doesn't somehow make it tolerable. Just because in this instance the CEO is an old man, set in his ways, as I've heard some say doesn't make it tolerable.

It's not tolerable to work to keep a portion of the population unequal. It's not tolerable to hide your hatred in your god. Remember when that same god thought interracial marriage was an abomination? Or how about when the same god was okay with stoning your wife or having 900 wives?

I don't believe in God. But my mother does. And she once said to a bigot, "We're all God's children." I don't know about God, but I love all my children equally.

So, if you say to me, "You only preach tolerance when you agree with it," I will say to you that I will tolerate a difference in opinion about the economy and tax breaks for the wealthy and welfare and healthcare and foreign policy. But hate? Never. I will NOT tolerate hate.