Sad, confusing, dangerous world...

I've been following with interest the back-and-forth in the Prince over the past week about the Anscombe Society that recently culminated in the reporting of an assault of one of the group's members.

After reading various blog posts I've found about the incident across the internet, it's amazing to me the amount of virulent anti-progressive rhetoric I've encountered. This reveals to me what I think is a sad personal truth: that I've been living in a bubble. A bubble of openness, tolerance, progressiveness. I grew up in a very loving and supporting family, and in high school in West LA none of my peers ever said anything disparaging about me being gay. They (at least to my face) accepted me for who I am and it wasn't an issue.

But that said truth that I'm now realizing is that a great percentage of the nation isn't this way. Even at Princeton, there are factions who would rather not associate me because I love guys rather than girls, who would look at me awkwardly for holding hands with my boyfriend, who would write essays and letters to the editor positing intellectual arguments for my I shouldn't be able to freely love who I want to love. So sad...

What's the solution? I don't know. I guess the world is a huge enough place that there are enough allies for me that I basically have to surround myself with like-minded people and ignore the rest. Because there's no way to unconvince people of the hatred they've believed for so long. Otherwise, I'll get dragged down into their ruthless arguments and feel worse about myself because even though I know they're wrong, it hurts deeply to hear people say disparaging things about me and my life, when I know that I am harmless and am just trying to live a happy life.

So how does this all apply to the assault on the Anscombe member? I'm not really sure. Even though I think his views are misinformed, hateful, and dangerous, I think that right now this is an expression of sympathy. Nobody should ever be subject to physical attack for their views, no matter how wrong. We either need to ignore each other and accept a truce and live in peace, or engage in friendly, positive, constructive dialogue to try to come to a consensus. I just wish I could show them that being tolerant of me and letting me enjoy the full rights of marriage would do nothing to undermine their own lives whatsoever. And I wish I could make it clear to them that whoever assaulted him was not representative of a progressive movement whatsoever, and I want this heinous crime solved as much as they do.