If any form of pleasure is exhibited, report to me and it will be prohibited! I’ll put my foot down, so shall it be… this is the land of the free! The last man nearly ruined this place he didn’t know what to do with it. If you think this country’s bad off now, just wait till I get through with it! The country’s taxes must be fixed, and I know what to do with it. If you think you’re paying too much now, just wait till I get through with it! — Duck Soup

One of the biggest challenges I find when talking about politics and social issues is to separate people from the attitude of “I don’t like it, so it should be abolished or regulated.”  The topic could be guns, drugs, marriage, or whatever.  The weirdest topic I ever had to deal with was whether or not someone in a suburban setting should be able to plant fruit trees instead of ornamentals.  The other person was totally serious, and could not understand why someone would prefer a real pear tree to a Bradford pear.  I was called “hippie” because I divulged that I prefer to plant strawberries to petunias.

Freedom to do what we want means we have to let others do what they want, assuming that neither of us is doing harm to someone else.  And by harm, I mean real harm, not “I feel icky inside when I see two men holding hands” or “I have a flashback to something that never happened to me when I see DaddyBear wearing a gun on his hip”.   Basically, my philosophy boils down to “you do what you want to do, don’t bother me or mine, and don’t ask me to pay for it, and I’ll do the same for you.”

Tolerance does not necessarily equate to acceptance, though.  It certainly shouldn’t equate to forced participation.  I have no problem with two people of the same gender deciding they want to spend the rest of their lives together and wanting to make it official, just as Irish Woman and I have done.  I do have a problem when that couple forces a business to provide the trappings of the ceremony and celebration against their will.  I believe that if you can carry a gun, open or concealed, you should carry a gun when you go about your daily business.  On the other hand, I do not try to force this onto private businesses that wish to keep armed people off of their property.  I just ask that they make that position clear before I go into their establishment.

In a nutshell, you mind your business and I’ll mind mine.