Low tolerance

Carrie Prejean is the gift that keeps giving, it seems. I had no blog entry for today, and now I have one, and one that allows me to use another bikini photo, one that is more flattering to Miss California (I have to confess--and I realize some of you will think I'm crazy--I'm just not that into the generic bronzed blonde, sorry). Maybe Ms. Prejean should get her own tag? Nah.

Some thanks is also due to Dave, our regular commenter under the nom de plume Leanright, since this post started as a response to a comment he left under yesterday's post, and started getting longer and more serious until it merited (or at least justified) a full post. Don't worry, Dave--I think you'll be unscathed. The pertinent part of Dave's comment (there's more, but this is what opened a door) read:

We can stop throwing around INTOLERANCE to discredit some group. Both side of each issue show intolerance. Perhaps Prejean is "intolerant" of gays and the issue of marriage (although her answer was stated as HER opinion and not an attack), But Hilton is also "intolerant" due to his criticism, NOT of her opinions, but of HER in general. Calling her a "bitch" is an attack. SHE did not "attack" any individual; she merely answered a question she was asked with honesty. Perhaps to win the crown next time, "NOT" standing up for her beliefs would be the best course of action. You may not agree with her, but you can't fault her for expressing what she feels about the issue.

Believe it or not, I'm not necessarily fond of using "intolerant" as a pejorative label. But that's because I think there are some things that shouldn't be tolerated at all or at least not very much, including the kind of vapidity characterized by Ms. Prejean. There are extremists on the left for whom "toleration" appears to be a mantra that stifles thought, but the fact is that some things simply are intolerable. There's a famous story told of General Sir Charles James Napier's reaction to the Hindu custom of sati, and while I'm loathe to have to agree with an imperialist Brit stomping all over a subjugated indigenous people (and advocating capital punishment while he does it!), I have some sympathy for the sentiment he's said to have expressed:

You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

...because I have no personal doubt in my mind that a respect for a woman's right to exist as an autonomous human being trumps whatever right Indians may have to their religion or culture. And lest one think this is a white Westerner kind of bigotry: I have no objection to prosecuting American Christian cultists who allow their kids to die by choosing prayer over science and find child abuse statutes that exempt such doddering malfeasance on religious tolerance grounds to be morally indefensible and utterly repugnant.

Anyway, back on topic: Ms. Prejean has a right to her opinion, and a right to express it; I have a right to call her opinion vapid and worthless. I'm not going to call her "intolerant" because being "intolerant" isn't necessarily a bad thing--but I will call her stupid, and stupid is necessarily awful. To the extent her opinion might even be at least colorably... defensible, for lack of a better word, she doesn't even really defend it, expressing herself in confused terms befitting a five-year-old.

Here's what she said, per the L.A. Times, and it isn't as bad all that bad though it's not the least bit good:

Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman.

First problem, actually, is that she has her one lonesome fact wrong: Americans aren't able to choose "same-sex marriage" or "opposite marriage" as they see fit. Same-sex marriage is legal in three states, will become legal in a fourth in September of this year, and was briefly legal in California until last year. A number of states have bothered to put specific bans against same-sex marriage in their constitutions, while others have specifically banned it legislatively. Here's what Ms. Prejean's "land where you can choose" actually looks like, per Wikipedia:



You can click on the image to get a better look at the map key. Oh, and by the way: did you happen to also remember that under the Defense Of Marriage Act (signed into law by popular conservative-whipping-boy William Clinton, by the by), no same-sex marriage is recognized as legal by the Feds even in the states where it's legal? And actually, if you look at the color key closely--yep, that's right: in a few of those states, even under state laws same-sex marriage isn't even legal where it's legal. Glad we could clear that up. Yep, that's choice in this great country for you.

Now, for the rest of it: it's no doubt true that Ms. Prejean was raised the way she was raised and that's how she thinks it should be. What can you say to that? It isn't how I would raise my kids, if I had any; then again, I'd like to think I'm wise enough and way-cool enough to raise my kids to challenge me when they were old enough to stand up for themselves--as much as I'd be upset if a child of mine became a hard-right-wingnut, having a kid who is able to disagree with you (or agree with you on his or her own terms) is a mark of success in my book. The one thing that would break my heart harder than a child of mine repudiating some of my core ethical beliefs would be a child of mine blindly accepting them. Of course this is hypothetical--I'm not even dating. But you get the idea.

So what we have with Ms. Prejean is a false statement made out of ignorance bonded to an opinion which she's likely given utterly no thought too. Who cares if Ms. Prejean is tolerant--I'm not, and I see no reason to be non-judgemental, patient, or even nice. (Okay, as far as that last goes, maybe I ought to be nice on general principles... I'm thinking about it... still thinking... still thinking... hrm....)

Yeah. No. I'm going to stand by "insensitive moron with bad fake boobs."