Pet Peeves: Door-to-Door Intolerance

You may remember my post about the "Mission Field" from last month. Well, what I'm about to tell you fits right in there with that same kind of intrusive, black-and-white, intolerant thinking and behavior I described in that post that totally makes me batshit crazy.

The other night, the same night I was all in a dither because of the train accident, we did actually get a knock at our door. I was busy in the other room, so Matt answered - but I heard pretty much the whole conversation. People who introduced themselves as neighbors "from a few streets over" (Mr. and Mrs. Somethingorother) were canvassing the neighborhood to get support for California Proposition 8. Once Matt figured out what they were talking about, he politely, but abruptly, stopped them and told them that he's not in favor of the proposition. The husband tried to continue: "Oh, no, see we're not saying they're not entitled to the rights that they would receive through a civil union, we're just saying that marriage should be defined as between a - ." Again, Matt politely, but abruptly, stopped him. But Mr. Somethingorother wasn't done, "Well, . . . is your wife home?" Matt replied, "She is, but we both feel the same way about this issue." OH, how we wished he'd instead said something like, "I'm sorry, but my husband can't come to the door right now." (Damned l'esprit de l'escalier.)

I've always disliked when people hang flags outside their houses - probably because the ones that they typically choose to hang are those cutesy ones, you know, the ones for every consumer-ized holiday known to mankind - but, now, I'm seriously considering buying us a large Human Rights Campaign (HRC) flag.