Is tolerance still a thing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I’m old enough to remember when tolerance was this awesome virtue. Everyone started talking about tolerance. That was all we wanted! Tolerance!
Now if you take tolerance in the classical sense, I agree with it. Tolerance in that sense meant that I don’t agree with your viewpoint, but I support your right to it. I don’t agree with what you say, but I do agree with your right to say it. Tolerance later was morphed to mean approval. Strangely enough, though not a shock to myself and many others, when the people wanting tolerance thought they were in a position of power, there was no tolerance shown to those who they demanded tolerance from.
Let’s consider two events from the news yesterday. One is from Londonderry Junior High in Canada. Here is a teacher going after Muslim students.
These students were skipping out on class to avoid pride events. The teacher spoke about how non-Muslims acknowledged Ramadan (And I would freely support a student’s right to skip that as well) and then went on. Fortunately, it has been transcribed so I will respond to it here.
“It goes two ways! If you want to be respected for who you are, if you don’t want to suffer prejudice for you who are, your religion, your colour of skin, your…whatever, then you’d better give it back to people who are different from you. That’s how it works, it is an exchange. And it’s not like that in all countries.
Ah. So since we showed respect for you, then you ought to show respect for us.
Lady. Respect cannot be forced. I could sit silent during something on Ramadan if I had to attend, but that sure doesn’t mean I respect it. Forced respect is an oxymoron.
Are you also saying that if these students didn’t accept what was going on in Pride, that you would show them prejudice then? Are you telling me the reason you are not prejudice towards your Muslim students is conditional on if they don’t show it to you? I frankly think I should not show it regardless of how I am treated.
As I told you, in Uganda, if they think you’re gay, they’ll execute you. And if you believe in that kind of thing, then you don’t belong here. Because that is not what Canada believes.
It’s nice of this teacher to claim to speak for all of Canada. However, how did we get from “I don’t support Pride” to “Kill all the homosexuals!” I realize they do that in Uganda, but that doesn’t mean these Muslims were advocating that. If I chose to avoid Ramadan, does that mean I want to kill all the Muslims? If this teacher didn’t want to acknowledge a presentation by someone on Romans 1, does that mean she wants to throw all the Christians to the lions?
We believe in freedom, we believe that people can marry whomever they want. That is in the law! And if you don’t believe that should be the law, then you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here – and I mean it.”
Really?
So if you have a stepfather who wants to marry his eight year-old stepdaughter, do you think he can do that? He can marry whomever he wants? Really? Could a woman be allowed to marry her cat or a man allowed to marry his dog? (Wouldn’t surprise me if that has happened.) If marriage can mean anything, it really means nothing.
Also, apparently tolerance has reached its breaking point. The teacher is ready to say Muslims who disagree do not belong in Canada and are not Canadian. Friends. Many of us knew tolerance was a sham all along.
If only that were the only story.
But there’s another one.
Now I don’t really care for street preachers for the most part. I’m sure there’s some good people out there doing that, but I find most of them don’t know what they’re talking about that much. That being said, I fully agree with their right to say it.
This man had a right to speak and disagree with what was going on as long as he was being peaceful. Sergeant Bradley McClure decided to arrest him in under a minute. The Reading Police Department in Pennsylvania has been getting a lot of pushback over this.
Some of you might be atheists reading this and saying “Good! Get that guy off the streets!” However, you should not support this. If the police can do this to someone they disagree with like this, they can do it to you. Freedom extends to all of us or to none of us.
The pushback is quite relieving to see. I really hope this continues. I honestly think I’m seeing a lot of that this month. There were numerous organizations, including the Navy, that had Pride symbols up on their social media and had to take them down.
My personal thinking on this is that what really got under the skin of people with this was the transing of the kids. People are usually fine with whatever adults want to do in the privacy of their own homes. You get the children involved though and the Mama Bears and everyone else rises up.
I really hope it continues. I would be thrilled if this was the last time we ever had a month for this movement.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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