Some days I feel like I'm the crazy person standing on the street corner shouting about Armageddon and conspiracy theories. Some days I feel like we need more crazy people standing on street corners and shouting. It seems like every time I turn around, there’s something else that makes me stop dead in my tracks and say, “You have got to be kidding me?”
Two months ago, it was discovered that
Amazon was deranking books with homosexual content. Not just books with graphic sexual content, mind you, but children’s books, like
Heather Has Two Mommies. Meanwhile, things like Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds were still ranked. Understand, Amazon’s ranking system includes the tags which make books easy to find if you don’t know the exact title or author. Deranking certain books was the equivalent of keeping them under the counter where customers had to specifically request them. When I told some friends, who are readers but otherwise not part of the publishing industry, I was a bit shocked by their nonchalance. I was disappointed – no, disappointed is too light of a term; I was appalled – when one long-term friend told me she believed Amazon had been “too limited in the net they cast.” [Anonymous]
I was appalled because, although it was a right-wing Christian who uttered this comment, she is also a well-educated individual. As such, I would have hoped she understood the world is not limited to her experiences and beliefs. There are others with different experiences, different traditions, and different beliefs who hold their history and life-paths just as dear and precious as she holds her own. I had hoped she would be able to understand it is one thing to live one’s life according to one’s own belief system, but quite another to attempt to remake the world and force everyone else to live according to her worldview. To do so marginalizes and oppresses many.
I believe firmly in the message of Martin Niemöller’s poem
“First they came…” If I do not speak out for others, even if they are not part of my tribe, who then will speak out for me in my hour of need?
The Bahá’í Faith teaches, “Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him.” [Gleanings, 249] I personally believe this should be taken one step further. Whenever another individual attempts to oppress another through physical or other means, we should all unitedly arise and prevent it. In order to create a society in which everyone is free, we must be willing to champion that freedom, even for those who are unlike us.
More recently, four men from the Christian Civil Liberties Union in
West Bend, Wisconsin, have
filed a lawsuit because it finds
a young adult novel dealing with homosexuality to be “explicitly vulgar, racial [sic], and anti-Christian.” [Flood] First, I have to ask since when is it a crime to be anti-Christian? Since when is that an offense one could reasonable expect to take to court? There is absolutely nothing in any US constitution, state or federal, which says any individual must be pro-Christian. That’s the beauty of living in the United States. I can be against anything I choose to be against and for anything I wish to support. I don’t have to be any certain religion. I don’t have to be any religion at all.
This protection is not limited to certain sects of Christianity. It encompasses all religions and non-religion, too. Your rights end where the next person’s begin; it is the next person’s right to not support Christianity if they so choose. My beliefs, my neighbor’s beliefs, your neighbor’s beliefs, do not infringe on your right to believe as you do. While Christianity may be the dominant religion in the United States, it is far from the only legitimate belief system; there is no state religion.
The Bible the members of the Christian Civil Liberties Union have read must have been far different than any of the copies I have studied. All the versions of the Bible I have had the privilege to read have one thing in common: they relay a message of compassion and acceptance as taught by the prophets of the Christian faith. The desire to remove access to other ideas and ways of being is not an act of compassion or acceptance. It is bigotry and oppression. It has as its source, not tolerance, but hate.
I’m not going to repeat the childhood adage, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” because I do believe words have power. They can slice to the quick faster than the sharpest sword. As such, they should be used wisely. I also believe words and ideas are precious, and should never be discarded out of hand. If we find them offensive, it is better to ask ourselves why, because obviously they have touched a nerve within us, than to shove them aside and pretend they do not exist. I believe in self-realization, not in persecuting others.
The thing is, this is not a fluffy bunny world. It will never be completely inoffensive. Nothing anyone does is going to make it that way. No matter what you object to, no matter what causes you offense, there will be people out there who believe exactly the opposite. There will be people out there, standing on opposite street corners from you, shouting just as loudly as you, about things that make your blood boil. And, you know what? They have as much right to shout as you do. They have as much right to exist, and believe as they believe, as you do. If you truly believe in freedom of speech, you will not try to change that.
And if you don’t truly believe in Freedom of Speech, do not attempt to use the First Amendment to further your own private, personal agendas. That’s not its purpose.
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Anonymous. “RE:Mail blocked due to Inappropriate Content.” E-mail to the Author. April 14, 2009.
Flood, Alison. “Christian group sues for right to burn gay teen novel.” The Guardian. June 12, 2009.
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Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Trans. By Shoghi Effendi. Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952.
“Martin Niemöller.” Wikiquote. Last Updated June 21, 2009.