Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness



This 4th of July got me to thinking: What does it mean to be patriotic?

Everyone has their opinion. Here is mine (and that is all it is - my opinion. Opinions are not necessarily agreed upon by everyone and everyone has a right to their opinions...):

A patriot is defined as: "a person who is devoted to and ready to support or defend his or her country." Being patriotic, then, could mean your intentions are aligned with the support and defense of your country.

I was born and raised in Texas. I love this country for many, many reasons. It is beautiful. Its borders are open (mostly) to people from anywhere on the globe. It strives to offer its citizens "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I interpret those founding words of the US Constitution to mean 1) you won't be killed for your beliefs, 2) you have a right to freedom, to live outside of captivity and 3) you can pursue things that enable you to feel positive about yourself and your life. Of course, "you" means every single person who lives here, not just some people who live here...and that is where my patriotic feelings start to waver.

As an example, consider this: Just one week ago, many Americans celebrated the US Supreme Court's epic decision to allow same-sex couples to legally marry. I would say this decision upholds all three basic Constitutional rights, yet there are also many American citizens who are outraged and feel imposed upon by it.

While I understand not every person is homosexual, it is also true that not every person is  heterosexual. To uphold America's basic Constitutional rights, all citizens - whether heterosexual or homosexual or someone in between - must be free to live the life that is most aligned with their truth, period. Setting up protections to make sure that happens equally for every American citizen does not mean anything is taken away from anyone else. It means that to honor the founding principle of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in America, what one citizen has access to, all citizens have access to.

To allow one group of citizens to enjoy certain rights and privileges but disallow other groups of citizens those same rights and privileges is called discrimination (i.e, "unfavorable treatment based on prejudice") in this country. And rightly so.

Historically, we've had a lot of that going on around here. And it persists today. Just listen to any right-wing, conservative radio talk show and you will find yourself blasted with all kinds of discriminatory ranting. The interesting thing about these shows is that most of what is said is not based in truth or fact. Instead, information is distorted and manipulated into conspiracy theories of amazing sorts and spun into political and violent outcries in the name of patriotism.

Patriotism...really? Let us not confuse patriotism with an aggressive fear of losing (sharing, really) what all citizens in America have a right to and are striving for. You guessed it: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.