I could not have said it better myself. You make a very good point with the murder of Sophie Lancaster. Here in the States (actually I am living Canada now) two girls were shot in Texas, one of the girls died while the other is in critical condition. They were a mixed race lesbian couple so my feeling is they were shot because they were lesbians or perhaps the shooter is racist and shot them for being a mixed race couple. It is so sad when people who are outside of the accepted norm like the teen girls, or a person in the counter-culture like Sophie Lancaster are murdered just for being different. People who stereotype and condemn a person based solely on the superficial are guilty of taking part in breeding the very hate that killed Sophie Lancaster and the Texas girl. And when parents pass this bias onto their children they just perpetuate the vicious cycle. In my life I have no room for shallow judgmental people. I avoid them like the plague as their hate is poisonous. And you know what the sad thing is? Most people do not see their shallow judgment of the superficial as hate. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...hooting-of-teen-lesbian-couple-in-texas?lite/
I am sorry but in the U.S. today there is an absolute right to not be offended. What offends you does not even have to meet some objective standard. If you're offended, that's enough. You can be fired and thrown out of college for "offending" a professional victim.
Each of us has the right to be offended to be sure, and sometimes this right can be taken to a ridiculous extreme I am sure. But I do not want to live in a society where I have to fear leaving my home out of fear that someone may be offended that I have long hair. Sounds like the book 1984 to me. I say this with complete confidence, that each and every one of us can be viewed as offensive by another. Some people are offended by Christians, some by women, some by models, some by politicians. It does not matter who you are or how good you think you are... there will always be someone out there that will be offended by something about you.
My philosophy is that a person can do whatever he or she likes just as long as the person does not physically hurt somebody.
