Another crazy day...

So I did get hired and start tomorrow at a part-time sales assistant job. Yay. It'll be good to be back in the work force again.
I also learned a valuable lesson today about tolerance, intolerance, and intolerant people that claim they can't tolerate intolerance. I'm very neutral toward the gay-marriage issue. I see and understand both sides of the issue. I lean a bit toward the gay side of the argument in fact, as I really don't care if two people want to get married, as long as they're happy and consenting. On the other hand, as a Christian, while I may be somewhat more open to the idea of gay marriage, I understand that people's religious and moral beliefs lead them to hold marriage as sacred, and not to be re-defined. It bothers me greatly that the pro-gay side thinks it's all about hatred and oppression towards them. It really isn't, and Christians are greatly oppressed in today's society--as much, if not more--than any other group in America. People feel they can be as mean and nasty towards, impugn, ridicule, and lampoon Christians at will. But my point in the whole flap had nothing to do with gay marriage, either for or against it. I--somewhat passively--supported Chick-Fil-A strictly on the basis of free speech. Dan Cathy has as much right to have an socio-political opinion and voice it, as Sean Penn, George Clooney or Matt Damon do. Private citizens can choose not to patronize their chicken shacks, or see their crappy movies, that's fine. I took umbrage at the fact that left-wing big city mayors used the power of their office to try to ban Chick-Fil-A from Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco (although no shock there). I found it overstepping and pandering, so I took a stance that, while I may agree or disagree with Chick-Fil-A's position, I think it's wrong to have big city mayors ban them like that. Nobody's banning any mosques, or kicking muslims out of any big cities, or picketing Dearborn Michigan, although the imams openly preach and prescribe the killing of homosexuals. (And almost everyone else.)
With that, several of my lefty friends (I have many) jumped in, opened up with both barrels, and asserted that I am somehow intolerant! Suggesting that I was bigoted! If you believe that about me, then you really don't know your ol' pal Shooey. I love and respect everybody. I make it a point to try to see all sides of an issue, and I stand firm on my principles of individuality and the "Live and let live" credo. Friends that I know, and actually hung out with de-friended me from Facebook, and presumably from real-life, too. While I'm constantly seeing socio-political posts and memes that I personally disagree with from some of these same "open-minded" and "tolerant" people! Am I expected to delete them, and begin hating them too? Is that what "open-mindedness" and "tolerance" is? I'm just not wired to hate that easily.
So, as I've mentioned numerous times (today alone!), anyone can stand up for free speech if they agree with what's being said. That's easy. The true test of championing free speech is when you don't agree with what's being said. That's when you lose a lot of the so-called "tolerant" and "open-minded". And once again, I'll throw the Voltaire quote out there: "I disagree with you 100%, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."