dlmCommentary

Ahh, what games we play with ourselves in our minds. And they get so complicated. No wonder we usually walk around in a state of being fooled. Here's an example.

I am "tolerant" and "compassionate" - let us say - because I believe that the church should give official blessing to gay marriage, and because I believe that women should be "empowered" (only, of course, as that word is defined by the NOW, the NEA and at Evergreen State College), and because I am "against war," and because I want all races and ethnicities to live together in harmony and celebrate diversity.

Gosh! How tolerant I am! How compassionate! How I love peace and justice!

Here's the problem: What is usually going on underneath the rhetoric is that what I *really* treasure - above everything else - is my own pseudo-religious left-of-center ("liberal") viewpoint. And who I *really* tolerate (that is, easily like, with no effort) are all those people who agree with me and therefore affirm my sense of myself. And, hey! Look! The people who seem to agree with me most are usually gay, lesbian, non-white, feminist and poor.

Why, it works out perfectly! I get to feel superior and good and righteous and compassionate without ever having to consider those people who I would truly find *INTOLERABLE*, namely:

Gay Republicans
Black Conservatives
Men Who are not Ashamed of their John Wayne side
Females who feel completely fulfilled as wives and mothers
Those damned fundamentalists
SUV Owners
Anyone with a job in "big business"
Anyone with a job at an oil company

When I hate such people, it is not because I'm hateful or intolerant or lacking compassion or wish injustices upon them, it is because they alone - a very small and very dangerous minority - are keeping the rest of us from replanting the Garden of Eden.

I don't "hate" such people. I just don't need to take them into account while I am patting myself on the back for being so compassionate.