just because your a liberal doesn't mean your open-minded

i know im being a very lazy book reviewer as of late. its the last two weeks of school, finals are coming up, homework is being piled on...its all been very crazy. so ive only been reading a little bit each night before i pass out from exhaustion. but recently, while perusin' some youtube videos and talking with my super-athiest mom, i've come to a realization: just because your "liberal" or "athiest" or any of those other tags commonly assosiated with being open-minded, doesn't mean your actually open-minded.

to elaborate: i mean, take an athiest. they dont believe in god, so you'd think that all of those pesky predjudice's religious folk harbor wouldn't be an issue, right? um, no. in fact, they can be quite worse. for example, i was chatting with my aforementioned mother about religion. i said that i haven't decided whether i believe in god or not, im still reading up on all the religions before i decide, etc. and you know what she said? "god doesn't exist". not an opinion, not a theory, not a hypothisis. fact. cold and hard.

so i said, "you dont know that".

and she said, "i do know that. god doesn't exist".

and this is why i knew nothing about any religion by the time i was thirteen. because no one taught me. because my mother takes her opinion as fact and, no matter how long i tried to persuade her to be a little more open-minded, or at least a little more sensitive to other religions, she was completly sold that her opinion was a scientific fact. this annoyed me.

not that im a christian or anything, i was just so peeved that she was just as close-minded as the hard-core fanatics she hates. i love her, but she's a goddamn hypocrit. she did not try to raise a well-rounded, informed child. she tried to raise someone like her, someone completly unable to see past the other side of the fence. and even though she's a liberal, she crinkles her nose when i mention i have a gay friend and she gets pissed as hell when i say i may--may--want to be christian or something. so, even though she's constantly going on about how damn liberal she is, she really isn't. maybe she's a victim of her generation, i dont know. but she's definetly not open-minded.

then we look on the other side, the conservative side. the WASPs of the world, the anti-choice, anti-gay marriage, anti-everything rich folks that everyone holds as the prime example for douchebaggery. now, if you show me glenn beck, yeah, i'd agree with you. he is a close minded, rich little prick. but show me clint eastwood, i wont think that. i'd think, "man, that is one awesome dude". but clint eastwood has the same general social views as glenn beck. he's just more subtle about it, and he's a shitload more open for change.



so i think that's what open-minded is supposed to be; being aware of both sides of the argument, still knowing where you start in it, but prepared to listen. and there are people like that in the republican party, and the liberal party. but then there are people like my mother and glenn beck who just aren't, and never will be, and don't know jack shit about anything outside of their little tunnel of vision. and they are the bad parts that we see all the time.

i dont know. thats just my half-bit teenage opinion.

in summary...go gay marriage! i have yet to see a valid argument against you, so go for it!