As I so often do, I had a little fun with a trending hashtag on Twitter the other day. This particular one was #SecondCivilWarLetters, where I poked fun of bigots of all stripes. While most of my followers' responses were positive, the one which stood out the most was, of course, negative. She called me a bigot.
Before fully tackling the accusation, allow me to first provide readers with the definition of the term bigot. It is "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions."
Now here is the tweet in question:
"Dear Resistance:
The war is over. We've won. About 30 seconds into our battle, the Trumpsters, as they were drinking moonshine & cleaning their loaded weapons with the muzzles facing them and shouting 'Guns don't kill!,' all shot and killed themselves."
#secondcivilwarletters
I was simply using the hashtag to satirize the large majority of Republicans' belief that "guns don't kill people; people kill people." Do all self-identified Republicans believe this? No. Check any survey regarding the matter, though, and you'll see a significant majority of them do.
Poking fun at bigotry or reality isn't the same as being a bigot in reality. If so, comedians are in a world of trouble, especially satirists. Just because a person, such as myself, may make fun of another's belief, that doesn't mean we think the person shouldn't be permitted to possess or express that belief. People have every right to believe that 97% of climatologists are wrong in thinking global warming exists and is man-made, but I too have the right to call them out on their scientifically inaccurate claims. The world isn't flat, but everyone has the right to believe that.
Before fully tackling the accusation, allow me to first provide readers with the definition of the term bigot. It is "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions."
Now here is the tweet in question:
"Dear Resistance:
The war is over. We've won. About 30 seconds into our battle, the Trumpsters, as they were drinking moonshine & cleaning their loaded weapons with the muzzles facing them and shouting 'Guns don't kill!,' all shot and killed themselves."
#secondcivilwarletters
I was simply using the hashtag to satirize the large majority of Republicans' belief that "guns don't kill people; people kill people." Do all self-identified Republicans believe this? No. Check any survey regarding the matter, though, and you'll see a significant majority of them do.
Poking fun at bigotry or reality isn't the same as being a bigot in reality. If so, comedians are in a world of trouble, especially satirists. Just because a person, such as myself, may make fun of another's belief, that doesn't mean we think the person shouldn't be permitted to possess or express that belief. People have every right to believe that 97% of climatologists are wrong in thinking global warming exists and is man-made, but I too have the right to call them out on their scientifically inaccurate claims. The world isn't flat, but everyone has the right to believe that.
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