As the long arm of the media plastered Macklemore’s demonstrative Grammy performance across social media and news outlets online, what stood out to me were the comments.
Not that his is the only situation mired in polarizing opinion – but the reason I write is to ask, “Are we missing something?”
Recently, Americans seem to be fixated on gay marriage, while the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has a list online of over 50 human rights issues spanning the globe that are just as immediate and important. They list human rights issues pertaining to housing, people with disabilities, education, hunger, gender, race, slavery, poverty, sexual orientation, torture and terrorism, just to name just a few.
Let’s be frank: a majority of those who oppose homosexual marriage do so on religious grounds, as is their right. But is our religion supposed to run our government?
In America, don’t we all believe in every individual’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” no matter their religious background, race, gender, or creed?
More importantly, why isn’t the same furor raised as visibly over the abuse of women, or the crippling poverty that leaves some mothers and fathers unable to feed their own children?
Author Terry Goodkind points out in his book, “Naked Empire,” that maybe we’ve lost sight of what democracy means for human rights – what it means in how we treat other human beings.
“All men have the right to live their own life,” Goodkind said. “Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right. Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.”
Some of those “inalienable rights” are tossed out the window when discussing how we treat the poor, the underprivileged or the minority. The fight for human rights is about more than just love. It’s about recognizing on a fundamental level our shared humanity, and learning to respect the resulting inherent privileges, as well as their limitations. Author Madeleine L’Engle put it best, however.
“Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.”
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