some questions

When Did you choose to be straight? (A Clip on You Tube)

Street interviews conducted by Travis Nuckolls and Chris Baker in Colorado Springs prove that asking the right question can be more important than anything you can tell someone.

Very insightful video from Travis and Chris regarding issues about hetero and homo orientation, selection, choice,and being. Kind of makes me wonder why it is we all don’t take the time and ask some very simple questions and why we don’t seek out some very simple answers. I think, instead of looking at the simplicity of resolve, we let simpletons set the agenda and priorities of our every day life permitting others to simply let the truth be hidden.

I have some questions I would like to add to the list of simple questions. For example:

When did you choose to hate? Was it the conversation around the dinner table that others of a different color or religion were bad? Was it sitting in front of the television watching shows that depicted all blacks as rapists and murderers, all Jews as conniving greedy lawyers and bankers? Was it a church sermon demonizing Jews at Easter time, in Synagogue when the Orthodox Rabbi said Adam should not sleep with Shlomo or in the Mormon Temple when the Elders dismissed polygamy as history to be forgotten but insisted that any gay male be shed from the family?

When did you choose to look the other way? Were there too many homeless people on the street and you were told that they were homeless because they were lazy? Was it when you were making more money in the housing market then ever so the adage you can’t get something for nothing did not register? Was it that you needed the nanny, the gardner, the handy man and since they were Mexicans to begin with they were lucky they were making $5 an hour. Was it when you blamed anyone and everyone else for mistakes in your life?

When Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell feel so sure, so inspired by God that their positions about the Constitution, equality, the plights and freedoms of Americans are so correct why do they not allow the press to ask them how come and based on what? Are they afraid the facts won’t figure into their fuss? Are they scared that what they are saying is not true? Are they worried that the contradictions and discontent they preach will be found to be simple folly? Why don’t we insist on an answer and instead just look the other way?

Why do we permit Newt Gingrich, to rant and rave about Gay marriage when he is twice divorced and not ask him about his double standards? Why did we let Dick Cheney, Karl Rove start two wars without either one of them ever enlisting in the armed services as young men? Why did the Republican Senators fight the Health Care Reform Bill stating it was socialist and UnAmerican while each and every one of them received government supported and paid for health care?

We now are witnessing a plethora of gay teen suicides, and still some of us are not asking the questions as to why. We are witnessing a barrage of anti Semitic, racist, homophobic, Islamaphobic, sexist, religious taunts and still some of us are not asking why? We are watching the politics in this country strive to move to the far right and far left, finding more pleasure in confusion then consensus and we are not asking why. We are identifying enemies, defining “we” vs “they” at a rapid speed and no one is asking why. We have indulged in differences defining them as destructive and no one is asking why?

Simple questions, looking inside ourselves for simple answers could solve an awful lot. Why do we spend so much time creating anger, angst and aggressiveness? Why is it so hard to find agreement? Why is it so hard to be honest?