Let me be perfectly clear...

I made this joke Wednesday...

"Yesterday, Amendment 1 passed and the Flyers were eliminated. Evil splits the doubleheader"

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And someone I went to middle school(!) with got upset and posted the following response on my Facebook wall...

"There are 30 other states that have similar laws in their constitutions. It's petty to call people who believe in traditional marriage evil, just as much as saying they hate people who think differently. God will judge me on whether I'm evil, not you or any other human being."

Well, this is terrible and I feel awful about it so please allow me to clear things up.

There's been a lot of discussion about gay marriage lately and people are pretty fired up about the matter. I kind of thought that assigning the label of "evil" simultaneously to the issue and a hockey team would clearly illustrate that I was making a joke. But by chiming in at all, I apparently presented myself as an enthusiastic supporter of gay people getting married.

That is not the case.

I do not enthusiastically support gay people getting married. I also don't enthusiastically support straight people getting married. For that matter, I'm also not opposed to any of these people getting married. Further, I don't do much of anything at all enthusiastically.  




My belief is simply that in spite of how certain characteristics might define an individual, people are basically the same and I believe in treating them the same. Or equal. Equal rights, equal responsibilities, equal rewards when they do something well and equal punishment when they screw up. Anything less qualifies as oppression to me and I'm not a fan of that, regardless of how many states choose to interpret it differently and whether or not it's backed by any kind of faith-based belief system. Beyond that, whatever people do (with the so-obvious-it-shouldn't-even-have-to-be-stated-yet-here-I-am caveat that it not harm others) is their business and my interest drops considerably. Where it falls completely off the table is when somebody tries to convince me that I'm wrong, or that they're more right than I am. That's when there isn't a scale that could accurately measure how many shits I don't give. And as far as wanting to judge you? You've got me all wrong there; something like that requires waaaaay more effort and attention than I'm even willing to talk about, let alone do.

So I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to say I'm sorry if you got bent out of shape when I flippantly referred to you and your beliefs as evil. I'm not going to do that because, well, I don't think it's necessary and also I just don't feel like it, but thanks for not challenging that description being applied to the NHL's  Philadelphia Flyers, which is at least equally as silly. Because that's a viewpoint I actually will enthusiastically support.