How To Handle Modern Situations.

It happens. You're out and about just minding your own business, and suddenly, you are confronted with a completely unexpected and unusual situation. You're shocked. Stunned, even.












What do you do? How do you respond???!!

Relax. We're going to go through a few scenarios and provide some real-world advice on how to handle them.

Scenario One: You are walking down the street and then, without warning, you see a gay couple walking down the street, totally holding hands!

Response: Keep walking. It's not your business and it has nothing to do with you.


Scenario Two: You're sitting at a restaurant, enjoying your lunch, and you notice that the person sitting at the table next to you appears to be a transgender man.

Response: Keep enjoying your lunch. It's not your business and it has nothing to do with you.


Scenario Three: You are still at the restaurant, and you notice the couple at another table are praying before their meal.

Response: Keep eating your dinner. It's not your business and it has nothing to do with you.


Scenario Four: You're strolling through a park, enjoying a beautiful day, and you notice a group of people praying in public!

Response: Keep strolling. It's not your business and it has nothing to do with you.


Scenario Five: You're in line to see a movie when you notice a group of people coming towards you. They are acting like a family but they are obviously different races!

Response: Do nothing. It's not your business and it has nothing to do with you.


And there you have it, folks. Turns out, when dealing with a situation that is unusual for you or perhaps makes you uncomfortable, you don't have to do anything at all. Because it isn't about you. And it isn't your business.

Yes, of course, you CAN do something if you choose to. You can smile at the other person/people. You can say hello. You can treat them like human beings. And you can be a decent person yourself and make every effort to be kind. 

But you can't treat them like an oddity to be discussed in earshot. You can't speculate aloud about "what they really are" or why they are doing whatever it is that you perceive to be unusual. Because doing these things leads the rest of us to believe that you are a terrible human being yourself.

Scottish author and theologian Ian Maclaren once said, “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” And that is especially true for those who must constantly fight their battles under the watchful and critical and public eye. If you can help those people, do so. But at the very least, avoid hurting them.

An End To Tolerance.

Let's talk about tolerance. It's a necessary component of social and civil interaction. It is the mechanism people use to keep from going crazy when other people don't behave as we expect them to.

In short, tolerance implies that one of us behaves in such a way that the other one has to be willing to put up with it for the sake of the relationship.

• I tolerate your constant tardiness.
• You tolerate my bad driving.
• I tolerate you always being on your mobile phone.
• You tolerate my repetitive storytelling.

But tolerance is about behaviors, not characteristics. It is not for me to tolerate someone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or other personally identifying trait.

Get the difference?

There is nothing wrong with someone's race. It is what it is. The same goes for their gender. And their sexual orientation. And their religious identification.

These are things that people use to define who they are. And who they are isn't for me to "tolerate," like my personal identification is somehow the right one and theirs is something less.

The entire concept of tolerance with regards to someone's definition of self is absurd. If Jane identifies as a man and is seeking to align her physical self with who she knows herself to be, good. It isn't for me to "tolerate" her as a transgender man.

It's not for me to "tolerate" Joe as a black man, or Kim as an Asian lesbian, or Pat as an asexual person.

I'll say that again. It's not for me to tolerate these people.

I do have a responsibility to them, though. I have a choice, really. I can either remove myself from their lives or I can accept them, fully and completely.

What I do not get to do is stay in their lives, feign acceptance, but continue to judge them harshly for being wrong and myself as loving because I tolerate them.

It's pretty basic, folks. I can choose to tolerate (or not) the way a person behaves to and around me. If I am bothered enough by their actions, I can opt to confront them or I can choose to no longer allow them in my life. Easy enough.

But I don't get a vote on who a person is. I need to either accept them as they are or have the courage and decency to remove myself from their life.

The other side of this is important, too. I am who I am. I am a forty-eight year old white gay man. And if you think I chose any of those traits, or you find that you must tolerate any of that, it's time for you to make a change.

I will not be tolerated for being the person I am. I am me, without apology and without justification.

(And to my friends, if I have made you feel tolerated instead of loved and accepted, I have failed you. But I promise, I will continue to do everything in my power to make sure that you know that our friendship is important to me, YOU are important to me, and I will do better. Because we both deserve that.)