The Atlantic recently published the results of a study that concluded that my home state, MA, is the most politically intolerant state in the US. It further deduced that while in most counties in MA, both Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to be partisan, in Suffolk County, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to be partisan.
I don’t dispute the findings of the study. I live in MA and it’s been a long time since I’ve found a Republican candidate, or Republican opinion, acceptable to my family. I’m not averse to hearing them out, mind you. I often do. But I cannot find it in myself to believe in a political party that doesn’t support my majority LGBTQ family, or one which consistently votes to take away my reproductive rights, or even one that thinks families who are running from a horror of which we may be partially to blame, should be separated at the border.
So I admit my partisanship. I believe my children should have the right to marry who they choose. I want to keep my reproductive business between myself and my health care provider. And I’m certain we should be helping families who are escaping danger, not vilifying them.
One should be intolerant of bigotry. One should be intolerant of discrimination. One should be intolerant of white supremacy.
What I take offense to is the fact that the study doesn’t take into account that most of the people in that “most partisan” county (Suffolk, of which I am not a part, but which contains Boston, where I grew up), have “skin in the game.” Suffolk County is comprised of nearly equal parts white and non-white identities. Roughly 40 percent make less than $50,000 per year. 41 percent of the people in Suffolk County speak a non-English language. And Massachusetts as a whole is the fourth most LGBT state in the country.
When you have a President whose administration wants to ban transgender soldiers, who want to take protections away from LGBT federal employees, who do everything to seemingly support white supremacy, who give tax breaks to billionaires at the cost of the middle class, and who want to build a wall that is not going to help immigration but is going to support a xenophobic view of America, you are going to have people who take offense to that.
I find using the word intolerant in such a negative way is unfair in this case. They are defending themselves and their own civil rights. One should be intolerant of bigotry. One should be intolerant of discrimination. One should be intolerant of white supremacy. Don’t get me wrong–there are many places Republicans and Democrats can work together. And we should. For example, I believe in common sense measures to border control (new technology and more personnel, for instance.)
But until the Republican party changes fundamental flaws in their platform, those that step on the rights of other human beings to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, I can’t consider partisanship a negative thing.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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