Opinion by Martin Cothran, Spokesperson & Senior Policy Analyst
The political world is filled with people like this–those who carry around the banner of “tolerance,” but wield it like a weapon.
The most recent victim of the intolerance of the tolerance lobby is a Christian school in Louisville, in which, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported, an assignment had been given to students asking them to respond charitably to a friend struggling with homosexuality concerning the Christian strictures on sexual activity.
The story attracted a crowd of Angry Men on social media condemning the school as being “intolerant.”
The school assignment was given to a reporter by J. P. Davis, whose only connection with the schools seems to be that he has a friend who sends his child there. Davis was outraged by the assignment. The reporter, who apparently couldn’t find anyone who actually sent his child there to quote, wrote the story anyway.
“I know it’s a Christian school, but that’s not my Christianity. That’s not my values.” In other words, what Davis thought was wrong with what the school is doing was that it wasn’t teaching his own values. Apparently Davis believes the school has some obligation to abandon its version of Christianity (the one that’s been around for over 2,000 years now) in favor of Davis’ more recent version, but it’s not clear exactly why, other than that it bothers Davis.
Detractors have every right to complain that a private religious institution is privately teaching religious values it is very up-front about teaching and has every right to in a free society to teach. But when you have literally no stake in it yourself, it makes one wonder about exactly what his standing is on this issue and why a reporter would include him in a story on the issue in the first place.
It must be a much easier job being a reporter today than it was when I was a reporter in college. If you can interview people who have absolutely nothing to do with what you are reporting on, you have a lot more people you can interview for a story.
Anyone can have his own personal view of Christianity. You can even take a pair of scissors to the Bible and create your own version of that too. But when someone then wants to force it down other people’s throats, he shouldn’t be surprised when they prefer the original, unedited version.
This is the “tolerance” agenda at its worst: belligerent, unempathetic, and completely lacking in self-awareness of its own inconsistency with its message.
There is an easy way for people to deal with Christian schools teaching Christian beliefs to Christian children of Christian families, and it is this: DON’T SEND YOUR CHILD THERE. Plenty of people exercise this option, and, in fact, this option does not involve any effort at all. You don’t even have to the trouble of complaining to the local newspaper on what the school is doing even though it’s absolutely none of your business.
Another person currently unassociated with the school but with a strong opinion about exactly how it should be run was quoted in the story. Kylee Marcy, a 2002 graduate of the school, was “disappointed because I’ve been gone 20 years, and I would’ve hoped that in 20 years maybe they would have learned that love is the way to go, as opposed to the fire-and-brimstone hate.”
Where exactly this “fire and brimstone hate” was in the actual assignment that expressly emphasized charity is unclear, but once again it demonstrates the intolerant attitude of those who champion tolerance, as well as their penchant for spewing fire and brimstone.
She also questioned why the school “would focus an assignment targeting one sin”–because, obviously, she would have been much happier had the assignment dealt with a bunch of other sins that she also happened to approve of.
Some people don’t mind being intolerant. In fact, if you think about it, all people–at least those who believe anything at all–are intolerant about something. But if you’re going to be intolerant, it’s really not a good look to do it in the name of tolerance. Everyone has the right to beat other people over the head with their tolerance banner, but they shouldn’t expect the rest of us to be impressed by the fact that they say one thing and then do something entirely different.
