Want to know what I am super bad at? Lying. I could never play poker. Unfortunately that means I am compelled to say totally inappropriate things because if I lied you’d know it. And I’d see the disappointment in your eyes and then I’d tell you the truth and both disappoint and piss you off. So it’s better for both of us if I cut to the chase and just piss you off.
So here goes! I have been so confused this week about the hoopla about both gay marriage being the law of the land and the controversy over the confederate flag. I’m having an “is this just me” moment? But I’m just confused why people are so up in arms about either of these topics.
Here’s the deal with gay marriage as far as I’m concerned: all people deserve equal treatment. Right? Isn’t it that simple? Try your best to muddy the waters. Try your best to throw religion at it (by the way Jesus never talked about homosexuality and it wasn’t a sin mentioned in the Ten Commandments so don’t know how big a deal God in the Christian sense thinks it is). So as happy as I am that gay marriage is now the law of the land I’m kind of like “duh, it’s about time.” When I hear all the arguments against they all sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher: wa-wa-wa-waaa. If your church doesn’t want to sanction a gay marriage good for you. Stand by your bigoted ideology. – that’s your right as an American. Just like its the American way to not deny couples pension and Social Security survivor benefits, estate tax advantages, and medical benefits to name a few.
Same with the confederate flag debate. Can we please stop pretending that the confederacy wasn’t pro-slavery? I mean I can’t even fart in public because it might offend someone but I’m supposed to pretend that a flag of a regime that supported slave ownership is some kind of honorable part of our country’s history and okay to slap all over your car like some freaking “my kid is an honor student” bumper sticker? Look, even the Nazis got the trains running on time and restored national pride to Germany post WWI. But they gassed six million undesirables – mostly innocents Jews – so no one gets to run around with a swastika flag displayed without some kind of social sanctions. Explain to me how the confederate flag is different because I’m just not even kind of sort of seeing it.
And isn’t it so much more simple to explain this to our kids if we stop trying to introduce complexity into some really straight forward issues? We grown ups do a pretty awesome job of over complicating things. So let’s just stop. Let’s not let our guilt, or shame, or need to justify our decisions, or adhere to our chosen ideology get in the way of doing what is right: letting people love who they so chose and putting an end to racial injustice.
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For laughter and inspiration read my blog NicoleCorning.com and my book The Working Mommy’s Manual, available on Amazon:
The Working Mommy’s Manual by Nicole W. Corning
For laughter and inspiration read my book The Working Mommy's Manual, available on Amazon.
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