Bigot

I have been called a bigot more in the last week than I ever have been in my life. That is to say, I had never been called such in my life until this last week. So, I decided to look up the definition of the word and what I found was interesting.

As defined by Miriam-Webster online:

Bigot -
a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

What's so interesting about that, you ask? Well, I find it very interesting that the definition of the word bigot depends largely upon the definition of the word "intolerance" which definition seems to be loosely applied and overreaching of late.

I love this excerpt from The Divine Institution of Marriage:

"In today’s secular world, the idea of tolerance has come to mean something entirely different. Instead of love, it has come to mean condone – acceptance of wrongful behavior as the price of friendship. Jesus taught that we love and care for one another without condoning transgression. But today’s politically palatable definition insists that unless one accepts the sin he does not tolerate the sinner.

As Elder Dallin H. Oaks has explained,

Tolerance obviously requires a non-contentious manner of relating toward one another’s differences. But tolerance does not require abandoning one’s standards or one’s opinions on political or public policy choices. Tolerance is a way of reacting to diversity, not a command to insulate it from examination."

So, happily, I announce that I am neither a bigot nor intolerant. I neither hate nor discriminate against homosexuals. While I do not agree with the lifestyle, I have no ill-will toward the human. I am completely willing to respectfully listen to opposing views, but have yet to receive the same courtesy from Prop 8 opposition (with one exception, I repeat, one - that's you, my dear friend L). I have found, in my week of sign-waving, that opposition to Prop 8 is largely represented by very angry people who have no regard for my views or concerns (defaulting more often than not to the wholly unoriginal use of their middle finger), but would rather drive by screaming about my supposed bigotry while effectively illuminating their own. Ah, 'tis a twisted world we live in where what's black is called white and what's white is called black.