It's a good thing I don't live in Mario's world

Because if I did, I would have rammed my awesome Volvo wagon, Lori, into someone long ago. 

Namely those someones who speed up West 7th Street 15 miles over the speed limit, switch in and out of lanes without blinking and have ignorant bumper stickers on their cars publicizing their intolerance:

Terrifying. 

It hurts to see intelligent people, or so I once regarded them, refuse to allow another person to be who they were born to be. Life is hard enough as it is, why the attempts to degrade and humiliate another human being who had just as little choice in how they were formed as the next? No one wants to live in fear but that is where the choice lies. 

The refusal to accept and learn about any lifestyle that is distinct from the hater's own stems, I believe, from fear. Fear of the unknown, the forbidden... but I also believe that those people who are so adamant in their stance against different cultures and lifestyles are so because of a deep fear of themselves.  Whether it be sex, marijuana, alcohol, immigrants or homosexuality... the barrier put up is because of a fear instilled in them at a young age by biased institutions that tend to cultivate doubt in the individuals that are born, without choice, into said surroundings.

Allowing men to marry men or women to marry women does not signify that it is mandatory for everyone to do so. It does not mean that same-sex marriages will taint those of heterosexuals.  But the fear of the unknown and the desire to squelch any alternative way of thinking continues to be bred across the world. 

I don't understand.

How futile it seems to try and push love and tolerance on people... how confusing.  Should that not be our prime goal? As fellow human beings? To love and be loved?

When tsunamis and earthquakes hit everyone is moved to do their part... but at a safe distance and through a text message donation. Give someone the opportunity to have a home and a family? No... of course not. Not if they are gay.  How close-minded!

Call me a hypocrite, but I would much rather be intolerant of hate than try to prevent another's happiness.

It's a good think I don't like guns, either...