The Patriotic Challenge
… here we are on the fourth day of July, 236 years after our country was born… many of you are probably going to parades, waving flags in your front yard, and overtly celebrating your freedom… this is all well and good… but I challenge you to think of your love for your country not as mutually exclusive from appreciating things and peoples and religions and beliefs and customs and viewpoints that are different from yours (or from our country’s), but as coexisting side by side in harmony…
… I challenge your kid to chomp down on a hamburger and fries, and to not make fun of the lunch of the kid whose parents are from India by telling him that it smells funny…
… I challenge you to enjoy your freedom of expression, your freedom of speech, your freedom to do whatever you feel like doing, and appreciate that just because other countries don’t have that same level of freedom as you have doesn’t mean that we’re better than them, or that they’re doing it wrong…
… I challenge you to go to your churches on Sundays, pray to Jesus, read and quote the bible to your heart’s content, and understand that our country does not have an official religion, so your neighbor who practices Islam, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or no religion, is just as American as you are…
… I challenge you to lead your perfect Norman Rockwell life with your opposite gendered spouse, your 2.2 kids, your dog, your minivan, and your modest three bedroom home in the suburbs, and understand that the two gay men in their fifties with no kids, no dogs, and no car, living in a one bedroom flat in the Castro District of San Francisco may be just as patriotic as you are…
… I challenge you to support our troops who fight just wars (if they exist), to remember those in the past who have done the same, and understand that our country is not always right, and the we have destroyed perfectly good social structures in other countries due to our meddling, protecting our interests, and our unflappable will to assert our way of doing things…
… I challenge you to watch your baseball game, eat your chili dog, drink your 64 ounce Bud, and watch a soccer game with the understanding that the rest of the world is not inferior to us because they don’t have grown men who stand in the sun and swing a thin piece of wood trying to hit a small ball over a wall…
… I challenge you to remember that there are all kinds of Americans, and that there are all kinds of differences between all those kinds of Americans, and that patriotism may mean one thing to you while meaning something totally different to someone else…
… I challenge you to know your history - American and otherwise, and to show your patriotism by learning about other peoples, and other countries, and other beliefs, and by respecting them, and appreciating them… and to remember that your view is not the view, but a view…
… so can you do it? I guess we’ll see soon enough if you can…
