Tom's Views

‎70% of Americans oppose the Muslim mosque near ground zero.  That’s a mandate majority.  That’s indeed strange, because   our constitution   was structured to protect entities from the whimsy and blind passion of the majority (mob rule). Is our constitution sacred enough to us to protect   Muslim   interests this time around?  Hopefully, the constitution will continue to safeguard freedom of religious expression for both Muslim and Christian Americans. 

But I also hope that we will not change our constitution or write new laws that curtail religious freedoms for specific faiths.  Punishing the whole Muslim following for the actions of less than a tenth of one percent of them, is unjust and so, further deepens the divide between Muslims and Christians. Consider that men commit violence against women. But in general, we don’t punish the entire male population for the crimes of a few. Christians in general?  Heck, Jesus followers are always getting into trouble.  Yet no one denies Christians their freedom to lawfully erect churches anywhere they please.  It should be the same for Muslims, as only a small handful of people calling themselves Muslim executed the 911 attacks. That’s just.

Lots of Jews commit bad crimes too. But do you see restrictions being imposed on Jews as a whole group as result? Nope. Not to this degree.  Why are we so much harder on Muslims?  No, the fact that Muslim extremists perpetrated the 9/11 attacks is not a valid answer. 

Deny any man or group anything based on their religious leanings, and you’ve violated their civil rights. You’re forcing them to endure segregation and other hardships simply because of their faiths. In this (the Muslim) case, popular opinion seeks to cut back freedoms based solely on the fact that the 9/11 hijackers claimed to be Muslim. It denies other Muslims rights that they would have without question, if they were not Muslim. In effect, the public is blaming the Muslim religion for the acts of a very small handful of its members. This is like the parent who can’t figure out which of his children spilled the milk on the kitchen floor. So he sends them all to bed early. Thus, denying this mosque is indeed punishing innocent Muslims wrongfully, just as sending all the kids to bed early is wrong to atone for the acts of just one of them.

Because a few extremists call themselves Muslims (those that committed the 911 attacks) we’re potentially subjecting all Muslims in the area of the proposed mosque to restrictions on how and where they practice their religion. Why should the wanton acts of a few bring condemnation to the whole?

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Support Muslim Mosques Anywhere In America
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

Dear [Brandon],

Many views I struggle to tolerate, though I actually wish not to put up with them at all.  But I stomach them to preserve peace with others and avoid the heated arguments that face-to-face discussions of them can produce. 

One common opinion I strongly oppose is the wide-spread opposition to building   mosques   at   ground zero   or   anywhere else   throughout America.  I find this hostile view toward Muslims offensive because such unfriendliness promotes inequality and perpetuates discord and hatred among religions.  When one religion (Christian) denies another (Muslim) the freedom to build a church (mosque), then much anger occurs as seen in the near-hysterical demonstrations against building the mosque at ground zero.  Curiously though, the Muslims supporting the mosque were virtually invisible and quiet, while it was their rivals (the Christian-American majority) who were doing most of the yelling, taunting, vandalizing the construction equipment, and so on.  Those acting the most righteous in this conflict were typically the most violent and hateful in the whole mosque-at-ground-zero affair. 

It’s infuriating that the Christian-American majority is so uninformed and intolerant about how benevolent and peaceful non radical Muslims are. Ask Christian Americans why they oppose mosque building at most any location, and most are hard-pressed to answer.  Of course, because prejudice can rarely answer the tough questions like this without lots of stammer and uncertainty.  But when they do respond, their rationale seems woefully inadequate to justify the sorts of restrictions on an entire religion that opposing Muslim mosques in America embodies.

The Majority   is a great place to be as long as it never turns against you, as it apparently has against the religious freedoms of American Muslims. People hide their flawed thinking behind the banner of preponderance (behind each other), and so, never really have to justify their misguided positions on their own; without backup from others like them. It’s the old “safety in numbers” phenomenon. That is: Subscribing to majority rule makes it much easier to persecute a person, as many others are doing the same.  Majority rule (or better yet, mob rule) is  also very dangerous for those in the minority. Certainly, majority might makes not majority right. Yet Christian Americans continue to relentlessly fight Muslims who wish to build mosques. 

You and I have lived in the minority throughout our lives.  Your sexual orientation makes you a minor (so to speak), as does my visual impairment make me a minor. So perhaps this has given us a keener appreciation and thus sensitivity about the sort mob oppression that happened surrounding the building of the Muslin mosque at ground zero. Nowadays though unlike yesteryear, I’m happy with my dealt hand of vision impairment, because it has made me a more tolerant and compassionate person toward those who are different.  I’m different myself, and I believe that that has enabled me to better appreciate and more fully accept others’ differences.  I understand the supreme benefits of a diversity-appreciating society, and the need to promote such a collective yet diverse existence.  Thus, I have no problem with Muslims building mosques anywhere they wish so long as the adhere to local ordinances.

Christians may dominate the American political landscape currently. But America is by no means an exclusively Christian nation.  We’re not supposed to be of one faith here; but a diverse and numerous set of faiths.  Both Christians and non Christians alike should keep reminding the population at large of that.  We need to replace this Christian righteousness regarding the mosques with a healthy dose of good old fashioned humility.

Many Christian American newspaper columnists I’ve read seem to just want to fight with all Muslims; particularly when they argue that the connection between Islam and terrorism is immutable — like Islam is a single person, and when a small few of them commit a violent crime, then the Christians fault all of Islam.

Finally, liberalism is sometimes discredited in America these days because it supports Muslim mosques. Well, liberalism has prevailed in most of the election cycles in the past century due to the high regard it places on the ideal of total equality. But while liberalism proved to be out of vogue in 2010 elections, many folks nonetheless espouse the liberal agenda. Numerous conservative columnists are dreaming if they think that liberal ideals carry no weight with folks.  When people are hard pressed, their conscience punishes them when they show too little compassion.  Many folks today are feeling ashamed that at one time, they opposed Muslim freedom, gay rights, enfranchisement of all races, and so on.  So too will it be the case with the Muslim mosque at ground zero. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Majority Oppose Muslim Mosque Near Ground Zero
• Mosque At Ground Zero
• Muslim Americans’ Rights
• Two Weak Arguments Against Mosque At Ground Zero

The   Three-Fifths Compromise Definition   follows: It was an agreement reached between the North and South in 1787 at the first constitutional congress in Philadelphia, PA. It laid out a way to count the slave population for purposes of congressional districting and taxation. In short: It counted a black man as only three fifths of a white man for said purposes.

It appears that anti-slavery advocates wished not to count the Negro at all, while slave owners wanted to count him as a whole person. The fact that this debate came up at all hints that there was widespread belief that blacks should be less sovereign than whites. On the surface, it looks like that sentiment was felt more among the anti slavery sect. But not counting blacks as human to any degree would have given the anti slavery movement greater congressional voting power, which they would have used to abolish slavery. So admittedly, there were other reasons for discounting the black man as a whole person than simply the belief that he was a subhuman. In fact, not counting him might have brought about his freedom sooner, since the anti-slavery movement would have had more congressional votes to do it than slavery proponents.

For a more complete  Three Fifths Compromise definition see the Wikipedia article    here. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Arguments Against The Three-Fifths Compromise 

References

• Three Fifths Compromise    definition on Wikipedia

Here are just a few of the many pro gay marriage arguments I support, to promote greater freedom for everyone to marry the person of their dreams and thus, attain greater overall happiness and satisfaction with life.

I wonder if the (currently) 50% divorce rate will drop as same-sex marriage becomes normal. Indeed, with less pressure for gays to marry opposite-sexed partners, fewer “bad” matches would occur. More people could actually marry the folks they love instead of those who society thinks they should marry. So the overall success rates of marriage would likely rise should we support same sex marriage freedom.

Now allowing gay marriage would not necessarily bring out every gay person still in the closet. Nor would this be the only reason that they’d come out if they were allowed to do it. But a pro gay marriage attitude in society would remove one more barrier to acceptance and equality which, over time, would encourage gays to be more openly honest about their sexual preferences. Gay folks would feel less defeated and more respected and empowered to make the sorts of choices that could really enhance their happiness. Gays would indeed be more willing to say, “I’m gay” if we create a society that respects the rights of gays, and allows them to form a same-sex marriage. Supporting gay marriage would be one potent way to further chip away at prevailing prejudices.

Allowing gay marriage would also send a message to the extreme homophobes that society is unwilling to tolerate their bigotry and hate crimes against gays. Can this be denied? I see this as irrefutably logical.

Universal equality and acceptance is an ideal for which to strive. But like most ideals, is not fully realizable. I understand that. Nonetheless, the effort to achieve it is valuable. If not for the long-term goal of universal equality, or at least, of some incremental step along that path as in equal rights for women, these landmark societal developments might never have happened; or at least, they’d have taken far longer than they did to come about. I know we’ll never achieve complete fairness and justice for all. But nonetheless, it’s what we (should) aspire to do, because over time historically, we do in fact move closer to the ideal, even if we’ll never reach it. We simply can’t afford to give up the ideal just because it seems unattainable. That would be monumentally dangerous for society indeed.

Complete gay acceptance is an ideal though, and as such, perhaps may not be immediately practical. Still, that’s not excuse to give up the fight for it. We should keep striving for full equality and acceptance, even in light of the possibility that total approval for all lifestyles will never occur. In fact, there is still lots we can do to become more fully accepting of gays. Supporting same sex marriage freedom is just one positively impacting change we could easily make. Doing so would further reduce the institutionalized bigotry and   prejudice   that has so plagued the gay community for centuries. True, we might never reach this complete equality for all goal. But we can at least practice it to a much higher degree than it is currently by legalizing gay marriage

The ability to treat all behaviors equally (universal acceptance) is not exclusively a matter of eliminating all oppression. But we’ll never achieve universal acceptance as long as prejudice-based oppression continues as a functional component in our collective societal belief system. It’s true that blind oppression is not the only reason that inequality pervades our society. But nonetheless, it does contribute a great deal to that state of affairs. So the more completely we can rid ourselves of blindly oppressive behaviors, the better, and again, allowing same-sex marriage would enlighten us further and carry us further down the road toward universal respect, acceptance, and equality.

Now it’s right to discourage certain behaviors that are demonstrably detrimental to society, such as murder, dating active drug addicts, teaching people to hate instead of love, to name a few. But other deeds are not so clearly harmful, including the allowance of gay marriage. Gays marrying gays has been shown to harm nobody.

Even the supporters of that Proposition 8 bill in California supplied no real proof that their predictions of gloom and doom would indeed happen if society was to legalize gay marriage. Indeed, all these anti gay rights activists could offer were religious dogma and personal preference against homosexuals. They showed no research that proves that gay marrying causes a lowering of life expectancy, creates more unlawful children, destabilizes communities, and so on. Opponents of same sex marriage made no objective case at all. So the California judge ruled against them. Hopefully, the rest of the appellate system will do the same.

Allow same-sex marriage and support those who seek it I ask you, and you begin to dismantle the systems that support the bigoted bullying that’s hurt so many for so long. I support same sex marriage freedom all the way, and I sincerely hope that eventually all of my readers will too.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Support Gay Marriage Rights
• Thoughts On Bigotry

A lady recently said that she would leave a man who desires a   tall, thin woman, even if she was thin herself.  Such a thin-seeking man, she said, would not deserve someone like her.  She seemed to believe me a bigot for wanting a tall, thin woman for dating.

I responded that it’s not a question of what the thin-loving man deserves; but rather, of what automatically turns him on, whether he deserves it or not; two very different concepts. If you date a thin-seeking man but deny him that in return, then perhaps you don’t deserve him.  Often, it’s those not so thin that object the most loudly to us tall-thin-woman seekers.

People leave for many reasons besides their lover gaining copious amounts of extra weight. Most of us have left for one cause or another. So does that make us all “the same sort of [bad] people?” Do we then become shallow and imperceptive? Perhaps so. But that generalization is useless because as you know, people in this group come from all walks of life. We all reject others on some basis. In fact, we all discriminate. So, why is a person who rejects another for being too fat any more offensive than she who rejects because her lover developed a foul mouth or started smoking?

She then argued that one who would leave a heavy lover would also leave them if they became blind or developed some other physical or mental ailment.

I countered: The inference that someone, who would leave a formerly thin lover, who gets heavy during the course of the relationship, would also depart if they lost their vision, is flawed. It’s probably more false than true in fact, because unlike a vision loss or the loss of other bodily functions (due to the onset of age, many sicknesses, and disease), we can control our weight to a great degree through the choices and amounts of food we eat, and how much we exercise. Lovers therefore, tend (and rightly so I think) to hold us to higher account for a large girth than they would if we developed an unavoidable illness that we cannot. To a degree, we can choose to avoid excess weight and other diseases that result from over-indulgence; though admittedly, the discipline to actually stay thin eludes many. That does not make it impossible however. We can, if we wish it strongly enough, get our weight down. People do it all the time. The bottom line: It’s a faulty leap in logic to assume that just because a person would jilt another for a controllable illness like obesity, that they would also depart for blindness, which could not be avoided.  Because I want a tall thin woman therefore, does not mean that I’d leave her at the first signs of illness. 

Then, she suggested that people should fall in love with   the insides  of a person, and   not  their slim waistlines.  Only a bigot she said, would only consider the person’s outsides when deciding whether or not she’s worth his love. 

I responded that the whole business of the outside of a person vs. the inside makes no sense to me. Why do people value a person’s insides more than their outsides? Why is it that in the minds of many, a person’s insides comprise a greater, more esteem-able part of the person than the outsides? Consider that a person’s insides are subject to the same ravages of living as their surface attributes. So the argument that you should like them for their insides because outer beauty fades over time, is also flawed.  In fact, with the onset of numerous brain diseases such as dementia, “the insides” as you call them, grow less attractive over time as well. Show me a heavy person who looks unhealthy on the outside, and I’ll show you the same person that lacks health on the inside. A person’s internals and externals are so inextricably cross-connected (like the left and right sides of the brain via the corpus callosum) that a whole person cannot exist in either one of them separately. So like it or not, the outsides arguably, contribute just as much to this   whole person   as the insides.  A person is not whole without both. 

Besides, the outsides tell you a lot about a person’s interior; just like the jacket flaps that succinctly summarize the pages inside a book. They don’t reveal everything to be sure. But the outside summary (the look and immediately observable behaviors) supplies enough details about the individual (overall health, preferences, habits, diet choices, education, hardships, and values), to allow enough of an understanding about the person’s insides to determine whether they’d be a good lover for us or not.  A picture really is worth a thousand words (at least!). Thus, the outsides are not this separate and excusable commodity that people who are insecure about their looks often insist them to be.

Some say I’m a bigot for wanting a tall, thin woman while feeling no desire at all for the others.  But I’m just taking care of me.  I know (though I did not decide this) the kind of woman that instantly melts my heart and takes my breath away, and I really like holding hands with someone who can do that.  I like it so much that I will not deny myself that pleasure; not even to escape the bigot label.  So if pursuing my heart’s desire (while avoiding she who is not) makes me a bigot, then so be it.  I don’t care.  I AM a bigot, and I freely admit it. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Prettiest Women Have BMIs Of 15 To 20
• Thoughts on Bigotry
• Tom’s Love Quest –> Outer Vs. Inner Beauty

The education system, by sheer omission, makes a negative statement about gays.  This is especially likely in private and parochial schools that teach that homosexuality is wrong   just because the Bible says it is.  A favorite of those who engage in   gay bullying   in the schoolyard is to ridicule gays for being gay; many homosexuals have suffered heinous acts of this nature.  They taunt them with jeers like, “God didn’t make you,” and “God would never want you.” 

Heretofore, schools at large have barely addressed the issue of gay bullying.  They offer as their defense that, bullying is just what kids do.  So they instruct, don’t over-react to it.  So yes, in these ways, our education system has become one of many instruments of oppression used against the gays becuse it either encourages gay bullying by teaching the belief that homosexuality is wrong, or it takes insufficient action to permanently stop the gay bullying when it happens. 

In fact, the school system pays lots of lip service to being against gay bullying.  Yet they’ve consistently failed to do enough to stop it.  Gay bullying is likely a prominent force in the life of many openly gay school students and is often a primary reason why bullies pick on someone; it’s easy to find a plethora of pieces detailing the abuse that said individuals suffer at the hands of bullies.  If the school permits, or turns the other cheek when bullies abuse gays (as some cases allege), then they share some of the blame for providing an environment that fosters hatred against gays; or at the very least, an environment where gays can be easily taunted and pushed aside with impunity. 

Further, schools must be held to very high account for this, because their students are quite impressionable.  High school is perhaps our last, best chance to teach the ways of benevolent living to people, while their minds are still highly pliable.  So we should not squander that chance by allowing disruptive bullies to rein as major role models for kids.  I believe that the education system at large has sorely failed to recognize the supremely important role they play in not only educating our children, but in keeping them safe.  It’s good now to see that policies within said schools are changing to better guard against gay bullying.  But there’s still a long way to go. Squelch the hatred in its early stages, and you avert far graver consequences later if you fail to stop it.  I believe that improvements in the education system could make a big difference in how much homophobia spreads.

Shall I list other ways?  I can if so desired.  But I trust that the examples given sufficiently show that significant exclusion of gays from the main stream happens in school environments, and that a consequential amount of hatred of homosexuals spawns in said places. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Support Apple Removing Exodus App
• Support Same Sex Marriage Freedom
• Religion Based Gay Discrimination
• Support Gay Marriage Rights

On the   Three-Fifths Compromise:   True, the written law about this practice of counting each black man as only three fifths of a whole person didn’t attempt to completely lay out congress’ beliefs about just what a black man was. But it gave us clear hints that, the definition of a black man in the minds of the general population, as compared to that of a white man, were vastly different.  The Negro was deemed as almost subhuman. Indeed, this compromise would never have been struck if blacks had been universally regarded as   people   rather than   property.

Since we can’t fully quantify the worth of a human being or to precisely define what a human being is, and since doing so was not necessary in order to maintain the collars of oppression around the neck of the black man, congress narrowed the focus of the law.  They wrote this   Three-Fifths Compromise in sheer economic terms (tax distribution and congressional districting, and representation). This clearly denied the black man full human regard, as well as the inalienable rights reserved for all Americans   except   for blacks at the time.  While the   Three-Fifths Compromise   represented a big step toward black equality with whites, it still oppressed blacks, just as the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy combated discrimination against gays in the military but still contained highly oppressive elements. 

Would the Three-Fifths Compromise have been struck if people on both sides (north and south) truly believed that a black man was unworthy of fighting for, that the Negro was less smart and so, less worthy of all the liberties that white Americans enjoyed? The compromise would have never become law if much of the population didn’t feel that blacks were less-than-whole men. The basic motivations that perpetuated such a law were very much fueled by the widespread, almost superstitious belief that blacks were only partly human.

Most any social policy that expands the rights of one class of people while curtailing them for another devalues the latter; just as the Three-Fifths Compromise devalued the blacks back then, and as opponents are attempting to do today to the LBGT community, Muslims, et al.

Since freedom from oppression is a basic tenant of healthy humanity (part of the definition of a modern, healthy human being in fact), then I would argue that restricting freedoms means that the definition of the human beings being denied, in the minds of those doing the denying, is why they deny said rights. They think of them as less worthy of rights. So, the laws, while they do not say it out loud, are about what people perceive the definition of various classes of human beings to be, at which the laws are targeted.  When they deem a man as lesser than themselves, they pass laws to pen him in.  I’m pleased that the Civil War ended the Three-Fifths Compromise. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Tom’s Views –> Three Fifths Compromise Definition

References

• Three Fifths Compromise on Wikipedia

Once upon a time, blacks sharing the same water fountains as whites appeared to violate prevailing standards of conduct, probably because so many people found the idea blatantly repugnant. So, the question is: Did the mere presence of a standard make this behavior right? Standardizing does not make right any exclusionary or discriminatory behaviors that it promotes, even when widespread feelings of repugnance create it. Indeed to bring about real and lasting harmony amongst all people, any standards that wrongfully deny a group the same enjoyment of life as everyone else, even if many think it repugnant, become hindrances. So, they should be rooted out and abolished.

You may define any standard you wish and then claim it to be “right” if you also provide supportive but nonetheless arbitrary definitions. If you say for example that God is always just because He is the ultimate authority who determines what justness is, then there’s no logical way to refute that. No matter what He does, you say He’s always right, even when what he does might be wrong. Job’s story in the Bible hints at God’s arbitrary rightness.  But in issues of real-life discrimination, arbitrary definitions and public majority opinion, might does not always make right.

It’s easy to devise capricious definitions to exclude any group you wish from life’s higher pleasures; especially when these definitions are based on prejudice, doctrine, and common reactions of repugnance, as opposed to unbiased observation and fact-based conclusions. But where’s the objective proof that homosexual relationships harm society any more than straight ones?   I have yet to see it.

In fact, the Catholic-sanctioned “straight” relationship (marriage between a man and a woman) only seems to work at best, fifty percent of the time, and this only counts the failed marriages that actually end in divorce. Many marriages go on for years that really should end immediately; the partners stay together unhappily for the rest of their lives due to doctrine, financial limitations, and other compelling reasons. Statistically, these “walking dead” marriages are considered successful just because the couple is still together; not because they’re   happily together.

How can this be good for society? I don’t believe that it can.  So I say that if some people can have more fulfilling relationships as gays, then it would be best for society over all to support them, and not pressure them via discriminatory laws and practices, into heterosexual marriages. 

Who’s to say whether gays can fully experience the sorts of loving relationships that God intended for man-woman couples? Many gays I know seem to live very full and happy lives; they raise well-adjusted children, and are highly productive besides. Yes, they do break up from time to time.  But so do heterosexual couples.  So this dissolution does not fairly and uniquely characterize gay relationship.  That is: You can’t justify depriving gays of their marriage rights by claiming that homosexual relationships are bad for society because they end.  That’s silly. 

Gays do not choose to be gay any more than straights decide to be straight. At least, science and religion have not thus far objectively established choice as a significant factor in driving this. In fact, there’s mounting evidence to the contrary.  

So given all this, I’m inclined to challenge doctrine and dogma on the curtailment of a gay person’s rights to fully pursue his happiness. Stop denying them, people!

For further discussion on this gay marriage rights topic, see my   Support Same Sex Marriage Freedom   piece. 

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Church Teaches Gay Inequality
• Is Homosexuality Genetic?
• Is Homosexuality Wrong?
• Support Same Sex Marriage Freedom
• Thoughts on Bigotry

I believe that teaching that homosexuality is a defect ingrains   prejudice   and is thus, cruel and exclusionary to the gay population. I deem the church’s teachings that homosexuality is something to move beyond, to be quite harmful to young minds. The church’s problem here (no matter how benevolent they claim their intentions to be) is that they indeed teach kids that they’re unusually flawed should they turn out to be homosexual.  They go on to suggest that said people should renounce their homosexuality and seek fulfillment in a “higher” relationship with God. Such systemic instruction can have devastating and life-long hobbling effects on a child’s self worth and his ability to accept himself as okay. As such, I would not want my tax dollars perpetuating these repressive anti gay teachings; instruction that promotes low self esteem and feelings of guilt and inadequacy in the gay person. 

Further, the scientific basis for this claim that homosexuals are unconditionally defective, has by no means been objectively established (except within the Catholic church and other religious-based groups). When you examine the roots of this view, you find that it has little more basis than simply that, “the Bible says so.” Increasingly, this postulate claim is fast becoming unpersuasive; particularly as more and more gays emerge from the closet, and prove (as they have and will do more of in the military for example) that it is in fact possible to be quite happy and accepted as a homosexual. As the gay acceptance movement gains momentum, the Catholic church will meet with more and more opposition like this.

Even if you’re not pushing an “orientation change” and just teaching that gays should live a life of abstinence while pursuing holiness, this is still is a form of ineffective sexual repression; one that has caused the church great embarrassment (its supposedly celibate priests still have urges to grope defenseless parishioners). The celibate life styles of said priests, would seem to make people more than less apt to commit deviant sexual acts. 

Additionally, the church’s teachings seem to completely ignore the findings of Abraham H. Maslow et al; the fellow who came up with a compelling description of the hierarchy of human needs. The love and sex needs are at level three of five, with the air, water, food (level 1), and safety needs (level 2) only more basic and immediate. Maslow stopped short of saying that we absolutely need love and sexual gratification to survive.  But he did hint that without these being fulfilled, it would be monumentally difficult for a human being to achieve complete happiness not to mention his maximum potential. The church is totally oblivious to Maslow’s theories, even though corporations teach Maslow to aspiring managers all the time because of its wide-spread, intuitive acceptance. Maslow’s book: Motivation and Personality completely describes his human needs hierarchy.

Finally, the long-held church view that gays require curing, illustrates an even more fundamental problem with the Christian belief system, that in the end could very well spell their decline into historic insignificance if they do not change. That is: The church changes too little to accommodate new data and philosophies. It dogmatically applies eons-old declarations with relatively little updating (the gay issue being one such teaching, disallowing female priests being another), to modern society. That will get them in more and more trouble (as it is in the gay debate) as the needs of parishioners diverge increasingly from what the Catholic Church willingly  accommodates.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Church Ignores Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs
• Exodus International App Removed From Apple
• Support Same Sex Marriage Freedom
• Thoughts on Bigotry
• Which Religion is Right?

References

• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs   definition on Wikipedia

Blindness, the complete absence of vision, presents numerous near insurmountable and difficult to control)  hardships (or hardships of blindness), as I’m sure most would agree, including:

• Depression.  Depression rates among the blind trump those found in fully sighted populations by two or more times. Yet I have trouble accepting that the blind are anymore fatalistic and lazy when it comes to rising above their difficulties than anyone else. At least, not initially. It is quite likely that their lives are simply harder to live than that of John Q. Public, through no fault of their own. Further, the forces that make this so cannot generally be combated.
• Reduced Earning Power.  Earning power is drastically lower, and again, this is not because the blind simply refuse to step up and do the hard work necessary for success. [Emmy], for example, has been job-seeking for three years since completing her hospitality training. Her grades were among the best in the class. Yet so far, no company has hired her though she ‘pounds the pavement’ often, and the school as well as BVS are helping her too. Her field is Hospitality. So just consider the thousands of airports, hotels, and customer service organizations around the country – all the doctors’ offices, department stores, online stores, state and federal offices, and such. Even the organizations who boast that they’re   friendly   to the handicapped haven’t yet made a place for her. It’s no wonder people might decide not to try anymore. You think [Emmy]   asked   for her plight? She didn’t.
• Exclusion.  Many blind folk live lives of relative isolation.  Sometimes this happens because they have less in common with the sighted people in the main stream, and sometimes, the main stream avoids them due to prejudice, which is discussed next. 
• Prejudice.  Finally, I know first-hand about the prejudice that collectively bars the handicapped from many a sighted circle. Curious, isn’t it, how so many women who’ve never dated a handicapped man refuse to even consider it. Talk about pre-conceived notions. Wide-spread prejudice cannot be overcome by a single person in a single lifetime. Ask any black person or any women from pre female suffrage times. They’ll surely agree. Yet in my case, I’m certain that I’ve done nothing to warrant such treatment, and that how I act and what I say to women has little effect. After a quarter century of chasing my dream girl, I’m convinced that freedom of choice hasn’t helped much. Sometimes you can make all the correct choices yet leave the problem unsolved.

By default thus, the blind and partially sighted walk tougher roads in life.  That uphill climb rarely levels either, and the hardhips of blindness remain as blind hardships even with the technological advances made thus far to ease them. So it’s crazy to expect the vision impaired  to achieve as much, or to sit in judgment of them because they do not. Thank goodness our forefathers understood this and devised systems like Social Security and Blindness and Visual Services, which recognize this added hardship and attempt to counteract it. 

 Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Against NFB’s Self Sufficiency Philosophy
• Asking For Help
• Darwinism: Bad News For Blind Lovers
• Free Will, Yes, But Determinism Too!
• Help From Sighted Lovers
• How Blind Men Find Women Attractive
• More Help for the Blind, Please