Tolerance, Intolerance, Fascism, and Beauty Pageants

I didn't jump in on this -- for one thing, I don't think I am able to.  For another, a good friend of mine jumped in to it.  And he had it pretty well covered.  Not that it was going to do any good.

It was a discussion on a link a friend of his posted on Facebook.  It turns out that there is yet another beauty paegent contestant who doesn't believe in "gay" marriage and believes that homosexuality is wrong.

Therefore, she must be destroyed.  Obviously.

Now the claim was that this young lady, Lauren Ashley, thinks that gays should be put to death because of the Leviticus Bible passage she quoted:

"In Leviticus it says, 'If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.'"

Well, it does, that is a fact.  It doesn't say that they should be put to death by man.  And she didn't say she thought that man should put them to death.  She just cited it to back up the fact that her religion says it's wrong.  She believes that it is wrong because God was pretty stern in his warning.

Now, Things I Know #7 says "Tolerance and acceptance are not synonymous."

In the long and heated argument that ensued, in an ostensibly conciliatory comment the original poster wrote:

Here's another thought: her lack of tolerance is met with a heaping helping of more intolerance.But the real trouble I see here is the belief some people have that their beliefs are enough to enact legislation.

Well... I've got two problems with this.

#1,  Lauren has shown no intolerance.  None.  She was asked a question on what she believed.  She stated that belief, and backed it with a passage from the book that lies at the core of her beliefs.  And people didn't like her answer.  So of course she must be destroyed as an example so that anyone with the same belief will think twice before stating that belief again.  That is by design.  It is one of Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals".   Ridicule.

#2, Who is trying to pass legislation to enact their beliefs?  Those who believe that gay "marriage" should be included in the definition of marriage, or those who do not?

Now that was a trick question, because right now the answer is "both".  But it wasn't always so.  It wasn't until the gay activists and their proxy supporters tried to enact legislation (which is routinely roundly rejected by voters everywhere) to re-define what "marriage" has always meant.   Since they can't get it passed via legislation, they have tried to circumvent legislation and go to the courts to "legislate" by judicial fiat a new definition from the bench.  They've had some success in that area.   In reaction, the groups that are trying to enact legislation to stop the judicial enacting of "legislation" that re-defines marriage.


My position on the subject is clear and consistent.   It boils down to basically this: "Gays can do whatever they want and call it whatever they want. However, Government doesn't have any business defining Marriage as it is a social institution and not a government institution. It is free to recognize whatever unions it needs to for the enforcement of contracts."

Period.

Now.... back to tolerance.  Tolerance and acceptance are not synonymous.

If you believe something is wrong, does that mean you are intolerant of it?

Actual answer: No.
PC World Answer: Yes, if you dare mention it.  And probably even if you don't.

In the PC world of  "Tolerance", Lauren is not allowed to believe what she believes because that belief is, in their view, defacto "intolerant".

Tolerance means I don't interfere with you doing what you want to do.  It doesn't mean I can't tell you I think it's wrong, especially if you ask me my opinion, which in both the Carrie Prejean and Lauren's cases -- is what happened.  They were asked, they answered, and their inquisitors didn't like the answer.

Now, who is trying to interfere with whom?  Immediately, scathing denunciations of Lauren's "intolerance" have poured forth.  Because she and anyone who dares articulate the same belief must be silenced.

Now a little earlier in the thread, the same poster went on to denounce it all thus:

I am a bit aggravated that the only reason cameras are on for this young woman is because of a 'scholarship program' that pushes fascist beauty standards on young women, and while she's got her 15 minutes, she's going to talk about how God is all for smiting the gays.

I also submit that anyone who uses a term like "fascist beauty standards" has no clue what the word "fascist" means.  None whatsoever.

Now what she probably means is "strictly and rigidly enforced" ... and there's a reason for this.  The Itailian National Socialists, also known as the Fascists, did use strict and rigid social controls as did their National Socialist brethren in Germany, the National Socialist Workers Party, also known as the Nazis.  And people who play fast and loose with the label "fascist" also tend to play just as fast and loose with the label "nazi" with just as much cluelessness.

The fact of the matter is, these strict social controls were needed to suppress dissent and demand allegiance to The State and the morality of The State -- which is precisely what gay activists are trying to do with people who don't want to call gay unions "marriage".  Progressives & gay activists want religious morality replaced by a their own secular morality and enforced through the state.  Thay seek to  force everyone to call gay unions "marriage" by having the state officially re-define it.  At that point, anyone who expresses a belief contrary to the State-mandated belief could be tried for "hate speech" crimes.   Similar things have happened in Europe.  But to gay activists and to their progressive sympathizers,  Lauren and Carrie are the intolerant "fascists".

Can you say "projection"?


footnote:  I'd like to further add that I know of no beauty pageant (other than those really strange ones for little girls, and I suppose most of the little girls in them actually like being in them anyway, but I digress) ... where contestants are forced to enter and compete.  It is completely voluntary.  I also know that there are women and a lot of whipped men who buy into the hyper-rationalization that it's all some patriarchal plot by white males to keep women down ... but I digress once again.  If women want to enter a pageant where they are judged on various ideals of beauty, that's their perogative, and if it's public and I want to watch them, it's mine.

Nobody is "enforcing" anybody's beauty standards on anybody except for those who wish some people to stop celebrating their own beauty standards because they don't like them.

Beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder no matter what the idealized versions are in these things.  We are pre-wired to be attracted to certain body features and physical manifestations of youth and health.  It's just the way it is.  Progressives want to re-make mankind into something it will never be.  Conservatives recognize that we are flawed in nature and our natures will always need to be recognized and dealt with.

We are who we are.  Deal with it.