Ryan, Madison

Block 4
Hillesland
May 9 2016

At my cousins wedding last year, I sat around a table with my extended family. Someone had
brought up the fact that same sex marriage had been made legal, and the conversation had
devolved into old sermons that my aunts and uncles has heard in childhood, during the mid 20th
century. This country is just getting more and more immoral, my uncle bemoaned. Whats
next? Marry dogs? Marry children? As the only liberal in the entire dining hall, and someone
within the exact same minority that they were all rebuking in the name of religion, I wondered
why I wasnt just telling them to shut up. Id have to remind myself that everyone deserved an
opinion and the right to express it, no matter how wrong or anti-progressive it may be. Still, it got
overwhelmingly prejudicial, and I had to politely ask them to move to a different subject through
a gritted smile. They did, and they asked me what I wanted to do with my future; a more proper
topic of conversation for aunts and uncles. I responded with a brief explanation that I wanted to
be a judge so I could go to the Supreme Court and rule on important things like the same-sex
marriage ruling. They expressed their opinions for a while - I could afford to slip in a little blurb of
mine. But the conversation quickly turned sour and I was chastised for bringing such politics to
the table that might cause an argument or make people uncomfortable. Democracy is defined
by every single person getting a voice, but whether this fosters democracy is another story. We
need to worry less about people saying what they think and more about them using it as an
excuse to stifle others. We need to teach people to understand that their views are just a single
perspective, and that there is a bigger picture beyond them. The problem rests not in whether
incorrect opinions should be voiced, but in the modern societys lack of ability to discuss new or
different ideas.