“Choice” has 6 letters
Choice shouldn’t be a four letter word. We have the wrong dichotomy in this country over how people should be able to live their lives. How one chooses to live their life should never be an either/or. Nothing is truly black and white, most of life lives in the gray areas. (That said, I’d like to note that I started this post the night before Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings began and it was the questions surrounding her religious beliefs and private life circulating through the press, combined with the sorry state of our social order, that prompted me to write this. But, to be perfectly honest, what I write here are not new ideas for me, or some recent revelation. I’ve always felt this way and have always viewed others’ private lives as their own.)
Now, on with the show.
Take for example the acceptance, or lack thereof, of homosexuality and non-straight sexual and gender identity. For some reason there are those who believe that by allowing those who see themselves as anything other than binary straight to be openly accepted by and into society we’ll all turn into gay drag queens getting abortions left and right, night and day, changing genders like underwear, sleeping with anything and everything and eating the children (I hear those under the age of 5 drizzled in plum sauce are especially tasty). Or, we’ll all become hairy, butch, militant lesbians. Again, with the abortions, non-stop gender reassignments and the eating of the children (yum). Somehow, for many people the mere act of not telling others how to live is a sin worthy of a Noah level flood. And, yet, it is my understanding that all religions teach us that we are all God’s children. We are made in God’s image. If that is true, then God made us all the way we are as a reflection of all the many, varying faces of God. Therefore, isn’t it the devil’s work to undo that? (Ahhh! Theology and philosophy and religion, oh my!)
On the flip side, there are those who believe that one can not be submissive in the bedroom and powerful, dominate, forceful and successful in public life. To this I say, live and let live. If one, say a woman, wishes to assume the submissive role at home or in the bedroom that makes her no less capable of being a great leader in the public sphere. Same goes for a man. If a man wishes to be subservient to his partner at home and/or in the bedroom that makes him no less a capable leader outside the home. And, on the complete flip side, just because someone is dominate in the sack doesn’t mean they’re not a wallflower. It’s the quiet ones that will surprise you.
Another illustrative point I’d like make is that there are those who seem to view anyone cisgender as an oppressor, especially cisgender white men. While I understand the underpinnings of this view, again, nothing is purely black and white. Yes, a cisgender white man will have been brought up in a bubble of privilege that they most likely never even realized they had (including myself, though I hesitate to identify myself as 100% straight, and being a Jew my “whiteness” is insecurely held by a thread). That in of itself does not make them a bad person. It’s what they do with the knowledge of their special place in society that makes them good or bad.
For us to survive and grow, to have a future we all want we have to get over this strange, forced dichotomy and work to overcome the core issue at play. Simply, centuries of straight male dominated society underpinned by unforgiving, unreasonable, illogical religious beliefs that punish some for simply existing and that require others to be subservient in all aspects of life just so they may be able to live. In short a, dare I say it, fascist worldview that states simply “You will be what we, the dominate social class, want you to be or you’re a deviant, not worthy of sympathy or empathy or kindness. In short, you are a pariah who must be extinguished or brought into the fold, by force whether necessary or not.” For a species that exults in the domination of Mother Nature we sure are piss poor about overcoming our own innate, instinctual tendencies.
This social order is all sorts of wrong for so many reasons. And, to the dominate social class I say this: There are those who you oppress today, that when they take the reigns will want to inflict the same cruelty upon you and your kin as you did them. Is this what you want?
And, mark my words, the pendulum always swings back, not that I endorse an eye for an eye thinking or acting. I’d much rather see, and hope to help build, a world in balance, where past wrongs are righted, the perpetrators are punished appropriately, and the past ills and evils are swept away by true Equality and Acceptance for everyone, regardless.
A great society is one in which all are accepted as equals and it is the character of the person that determines how included they are by the general populace. Everything else is unnatural. And, by forcing a black and white, right and wrong, male over female, straight versus not, sinful and holy, good and evil dichotomy we live in an unnatural world of our own making. There is nothing Godly in that.
