THE FACES OF TOLERANCE

It's been awhile since I've put a personal opinion piece up on this blog. I had kinda backed off from it, since there was such a glut of news, information and interviews to give you, but I had some things I just wanted to get off my chest, and now seems like the best time to do it.

I'm not really disappointed at the responses left on the recent Heather Cox interview, because I know that the people who leave these sorts of comments are just people who can't find any other way to get a piece of the pie, and so they try to get noticed by picking fights with people. Granted, I find it hard to believe that they'd pick on someone as sweet and gentle as Heather, but they showed enough of their true colors through their hiding in anonymity and posting useless and pointless insults to discredit them altogether.

That's negativity, and that's not what I'm here to focus about. So you comment kiddies who expected a big rant about what you posted can go ahead and sign off now.

What I'm focusing on today is those of you who are good friends to this blog, and while we differ on so many things, we've come together to make a wonderful community. It's a community that I didn't know was out there waiting for me, a community that I'd never have imagined existed at my fingertips. It has been a place where people who would ordinarily have never interacted get the chance to meet and enjoy each other. Even the occasional celebrity flits through, and we get to enjoy that.

No two of us believe the exact same things on any level, be it political, social, religious, or even in choice of favorite sports teams. Yet over the past year, I have found in this community a group of friends whose conversations mean so much to me, and whose writing has challenged me. Their posts have both educated me, uplifted me, and caused me to think. The beauty of the blog is that it takes away the barriers like race, gender, etc. and allows us to exchange ideas with unprecedented freedom. And there's a place in the blogosphere for all of it, be it religious fundamentalism, socialism, anarchism, pescatism, you name the -ism and there's a place for it.

The people who have contributed to this blog's community are male, female, white, black, Filipino, Indonesian, Asian, South American, Native American, straight, gay, bisexual, single, married, widowed, mothers, fathers, bachelors, prudes, sluts, givers, takers, outlaws, in-laws, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends, neighbors, strangers, fat, skinny, average, pretty, ugly, tall, short and all walks of life. And yet, I read them all. I don't agree with everything they say, or maybe even most of it, but I still look for that one thing that I can glean from it to make me a better person, and I hope that they can do the same from me.

You won't find two people on this earth with more different philosophies and world views than me and Kristin. We talk differently, we write differently, we think differently, and...we're just plain different. But we're both huge fans of each other. How does that work? A willingness to overlook certain things and concentrate on getting to know the person themselves. An understanding that though Kristin might say things with a bit more spice than I might that she occasionally has a good point (and also makes me laugh from time to time at her escapades.)

Kieran and I are polar opposites. He's gay. I'm straight. But you would be hard pressed to find two people who challenged each other's writing more than the two of us during American Idol. He writes his a lot different (a bit more blue) than mine, but there are some things he does with words that I only wish I could do. He's done more for my writing than he knows.

Stacy, you and I could go round and round about birth control and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all day long, but I am so glad to have met you and to be able to enjoy watching your blog (as well as your family) grow!

These are just a few examples.

So, if we accept all those things about each other, and strive to learn from each other and make this a better world, it should be of relative inconsequence what someone like Heather feels about her religion. It certainly shouldn't threaten us, annoy us, or sicken us, because we're a community open to the free exchange of ideas, without bias and without fear of reprisal from each other. To this day, I think we've achieved that, despite the drive-by commenters.

In closing this post, I'd like to thank each and every one of you who visit and read here for helping me understand just a little more about the world. I especially appreciate those of you who post comments and allow me to read your writing, both here and on your own blogs. But I also want to thank those of you who read and never once post a comment, because you still add to the community. I hope I get a chance to hear from you guys too, and if you haven't yet, I'd love for you to drop me an email and let me meet you. I thank you for your friendship, and I hope we'll all go forward with the intent to learn more about each other and not to judge and tear each other down.