Sunday, November 2, 2014

Is This the Hill You Want to Die On?

There are currently about 121 people/things I follow on Twitter. By "things", I mean like @LHSRangers - the high school where my wife @lisamwiegand teaches. One of the people I follow, is a very intelligent young lady named Jedediah Bila - @JedediahBila - whose descriptions of her life in New York bring lots of laughs. Her Twitter profile says she is "TV host. Author. Columnist. Radio personality. Former Professor/Dean. Animal lover. Superhero wannabe. Was juicing kale before it was cool." Again, worth the follow.

I was going through my feed, when I came across her following tweet: NOM, you've embarrassed yourselves. Badly. "Marriage Group Backs Liberal Dem over Gay Republican": bit.ly/1wFBkxp via @BrietbartNews

My brain immediately went, "WHUH?!?!?"

First off, for clarity, "NOM" stands for "National Organization for Marriage". They have stated that they will "actively oppose" the candidate for the GOP and will endorse the Democrat, even though they say that he is wrong on the issues.

Around the same time, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, announced that he was gay (I don't think there was any connection between the two events). Included in my Twitter feed were posts of a map of the United States showing in which states Mr. Cook would have lost his job for being gay. Most of the map was colored unfavorably for those who "butter their bread on the other side".

In a previous blog article ("D.O.M.A. is D.U.M.B") I make it pretty clear that "I'm not anti-gay. I'm not pro-gay either. When it comes to the world, I'm ambivalent-gay." Just wanted to make that clear up front.

Let me try to explain something here: when you are voting for a politician, what you are doing is playing the part of employer (or Human Resources) and are saying, "Yes, I believe this person is qualified to do this job," or not. When you are looking to fill a position you look for skills that show that person can do a good job. A good job. That that person can do a GOOD JOB. Does it really matter what color their skin is? No. Does it matter if they like football or not? No. Does it matter if they prefer dark chocolate over milk chocolate? No. (But, for the record, I do prefer dark over milk.) Does it REALLY matter what a person's sexuality is when it comes to doing a GOOD JOB? If I REALLY have to answer that …

But I guess I really do, since I'm writing this.

The thing about the NOM thing is that they would RATHER support a candidate whose stance on issues is considered "wrong" than support a candidate whose stance on issues is considered "right", but turned out to be gay. For people with this mentality, I think a voting booth is a dangerous place, and they should stay far away.

Maybe this will help: Imagine your house is in need of repair, and you need to hire the best carpenter you can find. You find out that the carpenter is gay. So you instead, hire the mechanic - because he isn't. The mechanic will make a mess of your house. But hey! At least you know he isn't gay!

But J.P., don't you know that presidents, and some governors, select judges? Yes, yes I do. Two things: First, judges aren't the supreme rulers (see what I did there?). There are checks and balances built into the system. The problem is that the other two parts of the government need to check and balance - and they don't. And second, the number of judges they can select is far smaller than the myriad of other things they do in their positions, having NOTHING to do with their sexual orientation.

For some reason, there is this mentality that if a Republican is gay, they will abandon everything else to push the gay agenda. That means, for instance, if they are for less spending, less government, and a stronger military, they will abandon those and only push for things that help place "rainbows" on everything. So instead, people vote for the person who will push more spending, more government, and a weaker military, but whose sexual orientation won't have any effect on doing the job.

So I ask you: is this really the hill upon you which you chose to make your stand?

© Emittravel 2014

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