“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. ”
The ignorance I experience on a daily basis, whether in my personal life or while perusing the news, continues to frighten me.
While I tend to over stress about the ignorance I experience in my own life, I have learned that I must start to let it roll off of my shoulders, otherwise it will start to effect my overall health. Yet, there is one incident that happened recently that I can’t quite seem to shake – Dolce & Gabbana.
How anyone can take the miracle of life, and the amazing technological advances that are present today, and stomp on it in a national publication, is beyond me. I chalked up their horrific stance to jealousy and bitterness, since the couple themselves had, at one time, been publicly considering adoption or surrogacy. What most offended me was a particular person that came to their defense and supported their “right to be stupid”. No, I’m not joking, someone actually used that phrase. Never in my life, throughout my catholic school education, public high school or four-year Jesuit University, was I taught that we, as individuals, had the RIGHT to be stupid. Yes, people can be stupid, yes people make stupid decisions or say stupid things, but supporting those stupid decisions, and standing up for someone's right to make those stupid decisions, is why our country is in the state that it is. In my mind, if you find it ok for people to speak hateful words, bully innocent victims, make fun or exclude those who aren’t “cool” enough for you, you are even worse than the people who are performing those actions.
I am not sitting here saying that I am losing sleep over their outlandish comments - that gay parents having a child, or anyone born through ivf or surrogacy, is unnatural, synthetic and chemical; but I am saying that I support anyone who stood up to them, and I would not, by any means, support them and their work, or purchase anything they produce if I had the means to do so.
Who are they to diminish the value of a precious child’s life, whether they were conceived naturally or through the miracle of science; and who are we as a society to accept those views and even support them? What we are becoming as a society tends to frighten me, and I only hope that there are enough good people in the world who are willing to make a difference, so that my children do not grow up in a world that is continually filled with hate, violence and bigotry.
There is an old saying that my mother has used quite frequently, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. The fact that they made their views quite clear, in a national publication, and are “shocked” at the backlash they have received is dumbfounding to me. Madonna was quoted, coming to Elton John’s defense, as saying, “Every soul comes to us to teach us a lesson. God has his hand in everything even technology! We are arrogant to think Man does anything on his own. As above so below! Think before you speak.” She also started the hashtag, #livingforlove, which I find to be a tad bit more graceful than #BoycottDolce&Gabbana, because although I will be boycotting them myself, I think an experience like this one should be a learning experience for everyone, and we should all be living for love and to love.
So starting today, I challenge all of you, as well as myself to start #livingforlove. One person at a time, one day at a time, I believe that we can make this world a better place!