We all have bias. It defines our lives and our opinions and our reactions. The basis of stereotypes is wrapped up in that bias, and there are many that are cultural. Bias is entirely created. You learn bias from the time you begin to comprehend the moving things around you are people. Even before you understand speech, you see that reactions, emotions and attitudes change around certain people.
We are not born hating. We are not born superior. We are not born suspicious. We are not born afraid. All of these things are taught to us, a part of the bargain as we learn to speak, walk, understand, comprehend. If you cannot understand why someone disagrees with you, it is simple. Their programing along the way was very different and they do not share your bias.
Not all bias is bad. We learn bias about dangerous activities (drugs, promiscuity, etc). That is a useful bias. We learn bias about responsibility and accountability. That feeling you have when you can't walk away from a friend's problem or tell a lie or invest foolishly, they are all bias, and they are all useful.
As with most things tied up in psyche, this is a source of misunderstanding, argument and dischord. There are those that refuse to acknowledge these simple truths, or acknowledge that you cannot avoid the urging of your bias, in moments of crisis. I said earlier that we are not born afraid. We are however born with the ability to be frightened. It is an instinctual thing, like breathing. A sharp noise behind you, a flash of light in the dark, these things frighten you. But, you can only learn to fear others by bias. If you have ever found yourself off the interstate at the wrong exit and looked around the neighborhood and locked your doors at the red light, that is bias.
Not always bad, but generally overwrought, these reactions occur in all of us. If your parents were ticketed often, or drove erratically or over the speed limit, you have a very different reaction to seeing a police officer on the road than someone who did not have that experience. This is bias. Being afraid of young black men, overly tattooed strangers, groups of teens, the police, Muslims, this is all bias.
Where it goes from emotional makeup to just flat wrong, is when we allow that bias to inform our interactions and politics. When we find ourselves stopping and blushing because of something we said, it is almost always an outcome from a bias that we know better than to voice. We know better than to voice it, because it something we have learned is inappropriate. We have lots of these because we are raised by flawed and imperfect people. And, we, as a society, learn over time.
It was considered inconceivable after the end of World War II, that a Roman Catholic could be elected President. The thought being something to the line of, he would just do whatever the Pope told him to do. We have learned that is wrong and inappropriate. Now we have had a string of Presidents from Ford on, that we don't know what religion they practice. This is how bias is overcome.
Bias is often inaccurate and mostly superficial. Sometimes, even though the bias is ridiculous, we cannot escape it. Logic be damned, they are trying to wage a war on Christmas. Bias almost always involves an innocuous and anonymous "they" to be based upon. The purpose of this explanation is to explain some of what is happening in the news today.
Franklin Graham, yes, Billy's boy, is suggesting that we boycott multiple corporations because they use same sex couples in advertising, or make products for same sex couples. In particular, Tiffany's, because they make wedding rings for them, and Wells Fargo because they use them in their commercials. In fact, his Crusade, or whatever they are calling it, are moving all their accounts from Wells Fargo over it. It is a humongous pain in the butt to change banks, and this seems an extreme issue to do it over.
Next we won't be able to shop at Food Lion, because they sell groceries to same sex couples. I only get on this bandwagon, when we don't have to pay taxes because same sex couples pay taxes. That I could get excited over. Otherwise, it is a dangerous business. There is no material difference in taking this stance, than there is in boycotting businesses because they serve Chinese or Muslims. It is even worse because there is not even a suggestion that there should be a seperate but equal facility for them.
Just this bias that the gay is contaminating us. It is that foolish sounding. There is righteous indignation that somehow, heterosexual marriage is going to be damaged by same sex marriage. These same people are very careful not to imply that folks who have been divorced multiple times are a danger to the institution of marriage, because there are still empty seats in the pews. Can't have folks that want to be married, and struggle so dilligently to exercise that right in the fold, because it is gay marriage, and you know those gays. Let them get in the marriage game, and it is all downhill from there. The value of our hetero marriage will just plummet. We'll never be able to sell it then.
This is ridiculous on its face. This is the same dreg, mouthed by the same people that argued so vehemently about miscegeny. You know if you let blacks marry whites, it will contaminate the legitimacy of marriage. In 1967, the Supreme Court said that was bullshit. I don't think they used that word, but they should have. And, somehow, this nation has continued to cheapen the legitimacy of marriage, without any needed contamination from interracial couples. More than 50% of marriages end in divorce already.
What makes it logical that letting gays get in on that failing enterprise is going to just be the straw that breaks MARRIAGE's back? What is the fear? Jesus consorted with prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, lepers, and the dead (one of the things that defiled a Jew by the law). He knew a thing or two about contamination and thumbed his nose at it to show others love.
I am not suggesting Jesus would have been in favor of same sex marriage, but he might have been more interested in the plank in your own eye, before he got interested in that splinter in the gay person's eye. He even said so about other issues. He told his disciples to make disciples of all men, which would be much more appropriate a focus than how to get even with companies that do business with the gays.
It frustrates me because I was brought up with that bias. I even said it from time to time. Right up until I realized some of the people that I liked the most, that I knew, were gay. It was kind of a gut punch. I had spent all that time with the gay, I was surely contaminated. I could have developed the gay at any moment. Doesnt' that just sound stupid? Like it is tuberculosis or flu, and you catch it cause it is on the air.
Or maybe you can catch it because your bank money is next to that gay money. Or pick it up because the diamond you buy for your girl was tried on that gay finger. Would it not be more Christ like for the minister to offer front pews for the gay couples, so that they might be taught the Word, and the love that is Jesus.
And, couldn't it be better if we saw them as fellow sinners, fellow travellers on this road? If we offered them our love, not our bias, does it not stand to reason that they could respond in kind, within the family of Christ. I mean the freaking Pope would not do what Franklin Graham is suggesting. I mean the white pajama guy with the white yamika Pope.
It shows some of my unconquered bias'. There are Christians that don't get Christ, and there are ministers that don't get ministry and there are churches that don't want to be the body of Christ. I just get really weirded out by them. My bias lumps them in with the same strain that develops Jim Jones and David Koresh. When you see them on the street when you are lost, lock your car doors. I understand.
Love your all, and them too, they just weird me out.
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