Facing Fears...

I find myself fighting a battle between hope and despair. It is the 7th of December, right in the middle of the holiday season. During a time when we normally focus upon our families and celebration, another wave of attacks by people motivated by ideological fervor hit. Paris. San Bernardino. More dead bodies, more blood spilled, more sacrifices on the altar of fear.

We live in a nation that was founded on idealism. The idealism that builds hope and expressive freedom, a haven for people to live as they choose. A country that permits people the right to express their thoughts, ideas, beliefs, without repression.

Ironic that this society's antithesis is the narrow-minded dogmatism of the religious fundamentalist. We protect the right of belief for a group of people who frankly insist all other ideals be supressed.

And it is people such as this that feel the most threatened by such a libertarian ideal. It resembles secular humanism far too much, which is licentiousness to the extreme, godless and unconsciable to the devout, whose foundation is their faith.

This conundrum now obsesses our nation, as we stare down the barrels of guns aimed at us for no better reason than we are free. At the same time, there are groups in America that would prefer we became a theocracy, dedicated to their particular form of Christianity. To my eyes, both threats are equally dangerous.

The external forces of extremism, exemplified by the Muslim organizations of Al-Queda and ISIS point to America and the West as examples of how the Godless act, decadent and amoral. They feel that they are superior to those in the West, because of their devotion to fundamental Islam and commitment to the Faith's moral codes, which espoused that there comes a time of Jihad, where the infidels will be slain or converted. A time when the faithful will be rewarded for smiting the immoral.

All the while, forces that champion the ultra-conservative, fundamentalist core of America have begun mobilizing. No longer is fundamentalist extremism limited to fringe groups like the neo-Nazi groups of a generation ago, or the Ku Klux Klan. Now, we find religious extremism taking front and center in our politics, as more candidates woo the ultra-conservative vote.

I admit to being socially liberal, as an advocate of "alternate lifestyles". Both my choice of Polyamory and my status as a Dominant would make me appear debauched to both of these groups. Never mind that on many other issues, I am conservative in my position. Like so many others, I am classed as being a person who is immoral, simply because my core beliefs differ in some aspects to the norm.

For this reason, both trends are extremely troubling to me. It seems apparent that all proponents of our lifestyles need to stand up and become active, because we will get the government we deserve, the world we deserve.

If we don't get involved, if we stand aloof, we have no way of shaping the outcome of the trials of this generation. That is perilous in the extreme, for we live in a time of change.

We cannot yield the hard-earned gains our lifestyles have made in acceptance without a fight. We need to make sure our childrens' world is a better one for all.