By Corey C. Poole/Opinion
A wise man I know told me:
For those that feel they know God, the great architect of the universe, the all father, or by whatever name you consider diety is like all light shining through a prism. You get every imaginable color spread across the consciousness of mankind.
Arguing that one color is better than another color is like children arguing that the red crayon is better than the blue crayon, forgetting that they came out of the same box.
And not to discredit anyone’s experience, but some of us have only been exposed to an 8-count box of crayons while others have been exposed to the 16, 64, 120, or 152-count boxes.
Individuals that have only picked up that 8-count box only know one shade of blue, while people who know the 152-count box know several shades of blue. While your truth may be, blue is blue and red is red; there are a lot more colors to choose from.
I share this with you, dear readers, in regards to a recent article published in the NPJ that I feel I need to address. It was titled, “Why the LGBT and Abortion Movements don’t talk about God.”
While I believe in freedom of the press and freedom of speech, this article had me seething. And I wasn’t the only one. We received the following emails (I won’t be sharing the names of the authors).
EMAIL 1:
I read Mr. Crayton’s op-ed regarding godless Queer and Pro-choice people. These movements are secular movements and do not require the dispensation of an imaginary friend in the sky. This does not appear to comport with Christ’s admonition to love thy neighbor etc.
America is not a Christian nation. We have no official religion and never have. We have Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics etc. Whenever a so-called Christian calls for hegemony over others they remind me of an American Taliban but without turbans.
“Every fool in error can find a passage of scripture to back him up” John Howard Griffin
EMAIL 2:
What a disgusting opinion piece. Clearly the writer, Edwin Crayton, is still in Sunday School mode: picking and choosing Bible passages to justify his preconceived notions of “morality” and societal norms. Leviticus also says we shouldn’t eat shrimp or pork. No newspaper with any credibility would publish such a weak and offensive piece of writing. Shame on you.
I agree with these emails. As an individual, I would have loved to ignore the submission of this opinion piece, but as a journalist I have to be objective. Objectively, as a news outlet, we publish opinion pieces from both sides of any debate or topic (as long as there’s no profanity or hateful speech directed toward anyone). Everyone should have the right to share their beliefs and ideas.
This doesn’t mean that the NPJ endorses the message in any way, or condones the beliefs shared in the article I’m addressing currently. I’ve published quite a few things that I didn’t agree with, from political views to this one guy who decided to name his dog “Trash.”
I accept that there are all kinds of crayons in the box and we all have a right to be in that box. It doesn’t mean that I like how hateful others can be, but I think the correct direction to go in, is to try to be accepting of everyone, even if they believe the blue and red crayons are the best when it’s clearly pink, purple and royal blue. I’m splitting hairs, but I couldn’t allow the article to run without sharing my thoughts with our readers.
I’ll leave you with a few quotes to chew on:
“There comes a point when you either embrace who and what you are, or condemn yourself to be miserable all your days. Other people will try to make you miserable; don’t help them by doing the job yourself.”
― Laurell K Hamilton
“The older I get, the more I believe that the greatest kindness is acceptance.”
― Christina Baker Kline
“Acceptance is simply love in practice. When you love, you accept, when you lack love, you judge.”
― Abhijit Naskar
