The Right To Be Offended

Anyone who thinks the U.S. is just Canada with guns, or that Canada is just the U.S. with health care, needs to read a couple of stories.

Compare...

...and contrast.

The first story concerns Dan Savage, the openly homosexual relationships columnist, and a seminar he gave in Seattle. He said the Bible is full of, quote, "bullshit". At which point several Christians in the audience staged a walkout, and all hell continues to break loose.

Meanwhile, here at home, a student in Nova Scotia was suspended from school for wearing a T-shirt that reads "Life Is Wasted Without Jesus". Some students and teachers, whose lives are evidently wasted, were offended. The student is recalcitrant; he's prepared to sit out the rest of the year if need be.

You get the sense that T-shirts reading "Life Is Wasted Without Jesus" comprise the top half of many school uniforms, Stateside. And that if Savage had given his talk in Chester Basin there'd be barely a media blip.

People who think they know me are expecting a one-sided rant against Christianity along about now. People who really know me understand I'm not going to oblige them.

Oh, it is Savage's right to claim the Bible is full of bullshit if he wants to. The United States still has freedom of speech. And if you actually read his remarks, you'll find he's urging Christians--every one of which has chosen to ignore other bits of Levitical, um, bovine excrement without divine smiting--to simply ignore the part of Leviticus that claims Savage and his kind are "an abomination".

I'm actually just as upset about the Nova Scotia case. There is no demonstrable harm in wearing a T-shirt that says "Life Is Wasted Without Jesus".  I happen to disagree with the sentiment, and I defy any Christian to tell me that, for instance, the life of Plato was a waste. Or Gandhi's life, for that matter. Am I offended by a T-shirt like that? Yeah, actually, I am, because it implies my life is a waste.

But since when does being offended equate to being harmed? 

As it so happens, I'm something of an expert in this field, because I used to be bullied, and I've spent a lifetime being offended (often by things the rest of you human beings find utterly unremarkable). I've got a crude sense of humour and it takes a hell of a lot to cross my line...but you so much as hint at a fat joke and I'll have to restrain myself from fattening your lip.

My take is that something like "Life Is Wasted Without Jesus" is mildly offensive. "Atheists Burn In Hell" is slightly more offensive--I know I'd be plenty offended if hell was something I believed in, anyway. And "Kill 'Em All and Let God Sort 'Em Out" is harmful insofar as anyone takes it seriously. (Don't laugh, because a few people would, and do.)

Or, from the other side, "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" -- mildly offensive. This--

--slightly more offensive, not to mention just plain wrong. (There are no children in my family. Am I normal?)

And something like "STICK NAILS IN THE EYES OF ALL FAGGOTS (FOR GOD!) --which I first saw in the Prologue to Stephen King's It and was appalled to find written on a brick wall here in my home town a few years back--that's potentially very harmful indeed.

So long as the message isn't actually inciting hate, what's the big deal? "JESUS SAVES isn't any more harmful than JESUS SAVES you from thinking for yourself". If your faith, or lack thereof, can't take a public rebuke, you need to rethink that faith (or lack thereof).