Happy together
Mama just read an article by Adrian Leeds, on her very good newsletter site, Parler Paris, that France is still resisting acceptance of the gay community. This is what she showed me:
“It is surprising to me that France is the least tolerant country in Western Europe toward homosexuals, according to a World Values Survey. Twenty-eight percent said they’d prefer not having gay neighbors.
But guess what? It’s not all that bad when compared to the U.S. with 25.1%! How did we all get so homophobic? With all the sex on open display, one would think that the French were much more open-minded, but that is wrong.
According to the survey, moral attitudes in countries with more economic freedom have more tolerance for others. Compare this with the Swedes who reported only 3.6%. Even the Brits were more open minded with 16.8%.”
All these statistics make my poor little pea brain swim, and yes, it’s good to have an idea of how strong the belief systems are in any culture in order to know what to expect should one have to confront the prejudices of some of the inhabitants of the country in which one lives, but the truth is that change happens and it is happening practically daily in the USA in many individual states and many countries, even if the statistic there of 25.1% regarding gay neighbors is still higher than this kitty would like.
I, as a kitty, cannot think of anything more pleasing than to have people for neighbors of any sexual persuasion who are kind, thoughtful, love their partners and/or their work and their lives and give me a little “hello, Loulou” if they see me in the garden, or if I, god forbid, escaped, would bring me back to my sweet little home.
What on earth is this silly of idea of not having a gay neighbor? That’s like saying, “I don’t want a Tuxedo kitty next door to me, no way!” Or “Boy, if that Chihuahua moves into our neighborhood, I’m outta here.” Absurd, no?
I would be honored to have Adela aka Jose (see my blog) as my neighbor, because anyone whose heart is that big and whose good deeds are that effective is okay by me. I would choose her as a neighbor over some other people I know who are mean to their kitties and kick their dogs and yell at their kids.
I have found that, as a kitty who had some of her own prejudices against, for example, Jack Russells or those really strange-looking rat-type kitties with no hair (!) from Russia or certain types of kitty-raising methods that I won’t mention just yet, I felt almost idiotic when I finally dropped those feelings I clung to and began to enjoy all of the aforementioned subjects. And those elf-kitties with those big ears and limpid eyes are really pretty cute to some of us.
If there is one four-letter word this kitty would love to put in the poubelle (that’s French for garbage), it is the word ‘fear’, along with ‘judgement’ and that other word that Mr. Mark Twain found so offensive: exclusive. Exclusive.
It’s pretty hard to be too exclusive on a planet this small, right? So try to think about that in a different way and I’ll let you play with my rat from Ikea!
