Unacceptable

I got to thinking about how many things to speak, to think, to act on are considered unacceptable these days.  Some are logical while others, in my humble opinion, are not.

I guess personal biases are one of those things.  We really can't help what we like or dislike or what offends our senses.  All the re-education in the world isn't going to change that too fast.  We can be socialized to the point where we don't express our true feelings and I wonder if that's good or bad.  Does that mean most of us go around with seething discontent inside that we don't dare express??

There is much I know better than to speak out loud but that doesn't remove it from my thoughts.  For instance, I sided with the baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple because I honestly stand up for their rights, too.  My kids and grandkids would be horrified if I told them because they have been conditioned to believe that the minority's rights supersede those of the majority.  I don't get it.  Shouldn't we all have the right to our personal beliefs?  Why is it okay for the gay couple to demand that someone who firmly believes that homosexuality is a sin cater to them?  If it were me, I'd simply never do business with that bakery again but the gay couple chose to sue them.  They lost the lawsuit, however, so I guess individual rights still exist.

Some social changes are logical.  A person shouldn't be denied a job or home because of their sexual identity, race, nationality, etc. but what of the restaurants that refuse to allow grubby homeless people in?  What about the rights of the other patrons who don't want to eat their meal next to a filthy person scratching their head?  I saw this happen in an Arby's restaurant a couple of years ago and it was truly disgusting.  Shouldn't we still have some standards of "normal" conduct?  If we accept a society with no standards at all because people are afraid to speak their minds, then we are not free people.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that social change just might have been dictated by a small minority of people who are so self centered that they don't recognize the rights of anyone but their targeted group.  The majority of people are struggling to understand and accept social changes that have been thrust on us too quickly.  What's worse is that we aren't given the right to refute them without tremendous backlash, often by our own friends and families.

I'm speaking as a senior who has the most to change.  Young people have been born and raised into the new society so it isn't really much change for them.  They don't understand that the society we grew up in and were conditioned to was very different than it is today.

The way I look at it is that we do have the right to our thoughts and our prejudices but we don't have the right to abuse those we don't like or understand.  No-one has the right to demand we accept them if we find them offensive.  Everyone has the right to be treated politely.  Everyone should have the right of refusal.  If you aren't accepted for who or what you are by a business or even a person, walk away and take your business and your life somewhere better.  Society is in a constant state of change so, in time, all wrongs will be righted.