This is an excerpt from a close friend's LIveJournal. She teaches music at a local high school. Sorry, I know there's a lot of negativity in the air at this time. I try not to propogate it. This just struck me as poignant - not just a comment on current politics, but the state of our shared culture and values.
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"It sickens me to go to school and have my students yell "faggot" out in class and not understand why that term is inappropriate and as violent as saying other hateful terms such as the "n" word. It sickens me when I go to school and listen to students argue that under John Kerry the gay people would take over and their sick and perverted ways will corrupt the calm. It sickens me when my students use the Bible as their reason for supporting Bush, a biggot, a liar, a fraud. They argue that this country was founded on christianity and that anyone who doesn't follow those beliefs doesn't belong in this country. It sickens me to listen to the radio or turn on the television to see the same mesages of hate being pumped into the veins of the very students I teach every day."
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"It sickens me to go to school and have my students yell "faggot" out in class and not understand why that term is inappropriate and as violent as saying other hateful terms such as the "n" word. It sickens me when I go to school and listen to students argue that under John Kerry the gay people would take over and their sick and perverted ways will corrupt the calm. It sickens me when my students use the Bible as their reason for supporting Bush, a biggot, a liar, a fraud. They argue that this country was founded on christianity and that anyone who doesn't follow those beliefs doesn't belong in this country. It sickens me to listen to the radio or turn on the television to see the same mesages of hate being pumped into the veins of the very students I teach every day."
rickroyal:
Always makes me vaugely sad to realize that there are people out there that have beliefs inverse to my own; that which I find good they find evil and so forth. I try to imagine what type of culture fosters such thinking and what types of people couldn't find their way out of it through simple observation and rational thought, but I'm at a loss.