It's early afternoon, and I'm sitting here because I was itching to write a blog post. I spent my morning washing my face, brushing my teeth, putting on makeup, and trying on several different outfits before making myself some eggs and sitting down to knit and watch Greek. It wasn't an unusual morning. I had aimed to leave the house around 10, but it was already 10 by the time I tried on the third dress. I think I need to do some alterations. It's too big.
Part of my morning included stopping in for a quick visit with Facebook. Usually, I avoid confrontation like the plague. I don't like to argue. I don't like to be wrong. I don't enjoy debate. This means that whenever someone posts anything vaguely political, I tend to avoid commenting. Today, that apparently went out the window.
I think I'm opening up another can of worms by blogging about this, but I just feel that I should. To the best of my knowledge, a good debater knows everything they can about the topic they're debating. I didn't. I didn't think before writing something to the effect of, "Being Christian doesn't mean you're anti-gay!" I ended that comment with something about possibly being naive and hoping for the best in people, and that I just wanted to add my thoughts and not jump down anyone's throat; my comment was very polite, and in response to one about how no one should be surprised by the fact that Chik-Fil-A, a Christian company, is against gay marriage. I didn't agree with that comment.
You see, it bothered me in the first place because I'm Catholic and I support gay marriage. (The Church would argue that I'm not being very Catholic after all, but that's beside the point right now.)
I was informed that Chik-Fil-A didn't say "anti-gay", they said that they were opposed to gay marriage. Forehead, meet palm, but sure, that makes sense. I was informed that there's a difference between acceptance and tolerance, which I agree with. I was also informed that I'm not going to understand because I'm not gay.
I can't put myself into the proverbial gay shoes. That's true. Life doesn't work that way. Shoes don't work that way. Here's one thing, though - I'm not a very articulate arguer. What I ought to have said was that I'm not trying to trivialize things. All that I wanted to say is that not all Christians are opposed to gay people OR gay marriage, and that it's not right to assume that a company "rooted in Christian faith" would be.
As someone who doesn't like to argue, it really irks me when someone's rebuttal misses the boat. I was misunderstood, but now people are upset. I wanted to, but won't tell them that being rooted in Christian faith does not mean following x denomination and its rules. It means believing in and being a follower of Christ, which means loving people. Some people take that to mean different things, I suppose. I know there's a difference between acceptance and tolerance. I know a lot of people practice one and not the other. I know a lot of people THINK they practice both, and don't. If loving your gay neighbor is tolerance and letting your gay neighbor marry is acceptance (and I don't even know if that's what he meant) - what does this have to do with being rooted in Christian faith, still? Can your company not being rooted in Christian faith and be tolerant AND accepting?
Those are my opinions.
This is why I don't bring politics or religion to the dinner table.
