Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"This isn't about mutual tolerance because there's nothing mutual about it. If we agree to disagree on this issue, you walk away a full member of this society and I don't. There is no 'live and let live' on this issue because Dan Cathy is spending millions to very specifically NOT let me live.[*] I'm not trying to do that to him.

"Asking for 'mutual tolerance' on this like running up to a bully beating a kid to death on the playground and scolding them both for not getting along. I'm not trying to dissolve Mr. Cathy's marriage or make his sex illegal. I'm not trying to make him a second-class citizen, or get him killed. He's doing that to me, folks; I'm just fighting back.

"All your life, you're told to stand up to bullies, but when WE do it, we're told WE are the ones being intolerant? Well, okay. Yes. I refuse to tolerate getting my ass kicked. 'Guilty as charged.'

"But what are you guilty of? When you see a bully beating up a smaller kid and you don't take a side, then you ARE taking a side. You're siding with the bully. And when you cheer him on, you're revealing something about your own character that really is a shame."

-- Wayne Self, 2012-07-30 (and reposted elsewhere) Note that the author, in an earlier paragraph, requests, "Please read all of the words here, rather than just reading half of the argument and assuming you know what I'm saying. Read these words as they are written." So I hope most of you will take the time to read the whole thing, for the context of this quotation -- even though personally I think this bit stands pretty well on its own if you already know the back-story.

Thanks to vvalkyri for linking to it.

[*] As explained earlier in the essay, the sticking point is not that Mr. Cathy spoke an annoying opinion about one detail of law in the US -- it's that his outfit has donated serious money to organizations that attempt to make or keep homosexuality itself illegal in various places here and elsewhere in the world, including countries where that means a literal death sentence. Read the whole thing.