I’ve had enough.
Every election year, it happens. Suddenly, everyone starts checking their common sense at the door before making the most absurd pronouncements. A few months ago, we had to suffer through Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s ridiculous commencement speech at Benedictine College. He thinks the world would be a much better place (and America would truly be great again) if we could turn back the clock about 70 years.
Now with the announcement that Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has chosen Ohio senator and Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance as his VP running mate, opinions, many of which are pretty asinine, are hitting us at warp speed. This past week, we got to re-experience Vance’s commentary about “childless cat ladies” in the Democratic Party determining our country’s future during a 2021 Fox interview with Tucker Carlson.
Note to JD: George Washington — the first U.S. President, who is considered to be the father of our country — never had children of his own. Neither did James Madison and James K. Polk, both of whom are considered among our greatest presidents. You don’t have to have children, or even want them, to care about the future, and having children doesn’t make you a better person or more qualified to hold political office. Jim Jones had nine children, and his leadership of Jonestown cost some 907 people, including 300 children (other people’s children), their lives in 1978.
Related: Parenting is the Hardest Job in the World
But yes, I know: JD is entitled to his opinion — like when he basically accused President Joe Biden of inciting, if not orchestrating, the recent assassination attempt on Trump. You know who else is entitled to their opinions? Racists and homophobes and xenophobes and sexists and the antisemitic and the Islamophobic.
Even more annoying than listening to the utter nonsense the -ists and the -phobes spew is the suggestion that because they are entitled to their opinions, it’s pointless — or divisive — to call them out for those opinions. Pacificists and those who generally agree with the -ists and the -phobes drop that tired platitude about entitlement and opinions as if they’re trying to make the world a more harmonious and less divisive place. Let’s agree to disagree, right?
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one. But if someone pushes their asshole into my face, am I not allowed to push it away and say it stinks?
We may agree to disagree, but I reserve the right to tell you that your opinion stinks. Freedom of speech is not a one-sided thing, applicable only to people who use megaphones to say stupid things. It also covers my right to disagree, as loudly, as publicly, as respectfully (or disrespectfully) and as often as I want to.
Right now on the daytime soap opera General Hospital, there is a truly infuriating storyline in which the mother of a famous pop star was captured on tape making disparaging comments about her daughter, who is a lesbian, and her relationship with her current partner. The stuff the mother says is truly reprehensible.
Somehow, the soap’s careless writers have made the villain of the story not the mother who made the reprehensible comments, but the person who leaked the recording to the media. The latter essentially outed the pop star, who had previously been in the closet. I’m not a fan of forced outing, however indirectly, but I find homophobic mothers to be far more vile. Last week, the pop star’s partner actually told the homophobic mother that she’s as much of a victim as her daughter because her private thoughts were invaded. She also reminded the homophobic mother that the homophobic mother has a right to her opinion.
Please God, make it stop!
If you have a right to your opinion, I have a right to mine. And I can choose to express it by simply announcing my own opinion or by shaming you for yours. Or, I can completely cut you out of my life, because along with my opinion, I’m entitled to choose who is and who isn’t in my life. I feel lucky to have parents who were accepting and supportive of me when I came out myself, so perhaps I’ve been spoiled. But I will never feel the need to defend a homophobe’s right to their opinion, regardless of the time or the religious culture in which they grew up.
I can also express my opinion about the opinions of political candidates and celebrities at the ballot box and at the cash register, respectively. As we’ve made painfully clear by now, everyone has a right to their opinion—but outside of the government, nobody has a right to expect or demand my patronage or financial support. Boycotting is among the most powerful and effective ways to express an opinion. Conservatives do it constantly, but when liberals do it, it’s decried as “cancel culture.”
If a comedian tells a homophobic joke or a celebrity makes an inflammatory comment about people who aren’t white, straight, and male, don’t those of us who are offended have a right to cut them out of our lives and to encourage others who think like us to do the same… while agreeing to disagree? Why do conservatives get to try to erase drag queens, trans women, immigrants, books, gay couples planning their weddings, and private people who make bad jokes about the Trump assassination attempt as they bemoan the evils of “cancel culture,” while we must sit quietly and accept their bullshit opinions because they’re entitled to them?
When Harrison Butka made his incredibly offensive commencement speech, I saw so many people in comment sections saying, “He has a right to his opinion.” I saw celebrities (mostly conservative, naturally) and his teammates echoing the same platitude as if that should preclude anger, criticism or the expression of dissenting opinions.
The more Butka doubles down on his ultra-conservative dogma and hides behind his religious beliefs—he most recently complained about drag queens recreating The Last Supper at the Olympics Opening Ceremony—the more he deserves to be checked. (Dear Harrison: The Last Supper is a painting by an artist who was likely gay; it was not painted by Jesus Christ himself.)
Debate is a healthy form of communication, even when it gets heated. I admit it’s often futile, leading to the nearly equally annoying “Let’s agree to disagree.” But it can also lead to better understanding, greater acceptance, and even the rethinking of dangerous opinions.
Yes, opinions can be dangerous. Opinions are the crux of racism, which was the crux of American slavery. The Holocaust would not have happened if it hadn’t been for dangerous opinions about racial purity. So let’s stop pretending that opinions are cute, harmless little things that we’re all entitled to, without question, as long as we love our family.
To those who insist on expressing their opinions, if you’re going to use your megaphone to advance stupidity, at least have the guts to face your challengers, rather than hiding behind the supposed sanctity of opinions (or religion, or upbringing). It might not make what you say any less stupid, but I’ll at least concede a little more respect while I’m cutting you down to size.
And then we can agree to disagree.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeremy Heligar's work on Medium.