It's Time to Rise Above

“If ye fulfill the Royal Law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” – James 2:8

Y’all don’t expect an agnostic like me to know the Bible, do you? Well, I not only know it, but seem to do a better job of living it than most. I may not believe in what it has to say about the afterlife, but I do think it does have a few points in it that are worthy of listening to. Throw out Leviticus and a few other things, and you’re on the right track. Now, if only we could actually get the people who rail against all the liberal atrocities being committed in this country to actually live by it as well.

It is a sad story coming out of Fulton, Mississippi, where the school board has the audacity to blame Constance McMillen for cancelling the prom. She didn’t cancel it you idiots, your bigotry and intolerance cancelled it. How dare you try to put this on her. In my eyes, the only thing that this girl did wrong was that she asked for permission to bring a girl as her date. Had it been my daughter, I would have told her to just show up in her tux, with her girlfriend on her arm.

The school board said that it was cancelling the prom "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events". But the only reason that there were distractions caused were because of their actions. Do you think this girl wanted anything more than to simply have the opportunity to attend her Senior prom like every other high school student does? She wasn’t looking to become a celebrity. She wasn’t looking to make national headlines. She wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom. And rather than showing a little tolerance, and some common decency, the school board cancelled the prom, and blames this teenage girl. They should be ashamed of themselves.

This really just scratches the surface of a far greater problem in this country. Why all the hatred? Why the divisiveness? Why do so many people feel as though they have this obligation to tell everyone else how to live their lives? Why are so many people unwilling to love their neighbor?

This country was founded on the principal that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” So, where’s the equality? Where is the pursuit of happiness? Doesn’t apply if you’re gay? As was formerly the case if you were a woman? Or if you were black? Can you even imagine the fallout if this story out of rural Mississippi was happening because it was a black boy wanting to bring his white girlfriend to prom? Oh, wait, it’s only been about 40 or 50 years since that was the case. But somehow THIS discrimination isn’t as bad? It’s still discrimination based on fear, hatred, and an underlying lack of knowledge.

I wonder exactly what they are afraid of? That homosexuality is contagious, and that if they let these two girls into the prom, that they’ll somehow pass it on to the other kids? Pretty soon, there will be a giant epidemic of gay and lesbianism ravaging the school district? Seriously, where is the harm? Who do they think they are protecting? The kids? If this girl is openly a lesbian (which clearly she is if she’s wanting to come to prom with her girlfriend), then everyone at the school ALREADY KNOWS! It’s not going to be a shock, or a distraction. The narrow minded will snicker or laugh, as they probably do to her every day in the halls. The rest of the kids won’t care. And the next day, everyone will have a great memory of their prom.

It is so sad that in this day and age, when we are capable of so much, that we spend our time worrying about such petty and trifling things. I wish that I had never heard the name Constance McMillen. I wish that I lived in a world where you could just live your life as you saw fit, and didn’t have anyone telling you why you couldn’t.

Love is the single greatest force in the universe. It is the only thing that can overcome hatred. Like fire and water, they cancel each other out. There is too much hate in the world right now. Too much divisiveness. Too much anger. We need to embrace love wherever it is, because it makes the world a better place.

Love is losing the battle in the world, folks. Good is losing. Light is being swallowed by darkness, and that darkness is our own intolerance. We cannot continue on the path that we are on. It’s time to rise above, and that starts with acceptance. It starts with tolerance. It starts by looking within ourselves and purging whatever hatred lies there.

We’re not going to get there in time to save the girl’s prom. Hell, we might not get there in my lifetime. But I’m not going to let that stop me from trying.