Equality and Tolerance for All: Can we get there?

If you live in our great state of Wyoming, you’re probably proud to live in the Equality State. That might mean something different for everyone, but history tells us our nickname comes from Wyoming’s long history of trailblazing women and granting women the right to vote before the rest of the union.

Today, equality takes on a different meaning and maybe rightly so, since we’re living in the year 2022. Simply put, life is different than it was a hundred years ago. My question though, should it take on a different meaning? Today, equality seems to be solely focused on minority groups (i.e., minority ethnic groups and LGBTQ+ groups). I’m not saying this is wrong, but isn’t equality meant for everyone?

Should a Christian be able to feel of equal value to a person who identifies with the LGBTQ+ group? Should a mom feel less equal to a high paid education administrator?

Even as the least populated state in our nation, there are many different opinions, beliefs and ways of life and as Governor Gordon posted on Facebook recently, “…The Wyoming Constitution speaks clearly and emphatically about civil rights and equality for ‘all members of the human race.’…”

Part of equality means tolerance. In order to gain true equality, don’t we need to be tolerant of the differences among us?

Too often in today’s society, a differing opinion is looked at as intolerance or hate. Why? We are human beings who have wonderful and vastly huge differences! Our differences should be respected. I believe it’s possible to disagree AND be respectful and kind at the same time.

We should not be bullying others into believing what we believe. If I teach my children a biblical world view (e.g., God made man and woman perfectly in his image), that doesn’t equal, “I hate trans people or gay people.” It simply means I don’t agree, and that should be okay!

A differing opinion is not a license to name call, vandalize or be violent; this is hate and shouldn’t be tolerated. But if I simply say that I believe God made man and woman and there are only two genders, this is not hate; this is my differing view. This does not make me a bigot; it makes me a person living within a biblical world view.

Moms for Liberty has several local chapters here in Wyoming: Laramie, Natrona, Converse and Sweetwater Counties. These groups have been working to inform and empower parents to become more involved in their children’s education. As a result of parents being more involved, they’ve noticed books and specific curriculum that they don’t want their children exposed to. This does not make these parents hateful or bigoted toward certain groups. It makes these parents, well, parents.

As parents we set boundaries (or should) for our children. We raise them up with a certain set of values and beliefs. This is quite literally, a parents’ job; to teach them, protect them and raise them up to be responsible, respectful and successful citizens!

Each family has a different variation of this and that should be perfectly okay. It should be treated with tolerance and equality.

Recently, parents who speak up against age-inappropriate books in the public school library are called out for hating teachers, librarians and the LGBTQ+ community. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

We hate the books. Period. To be even clearer, we do not want to ban books; if you’d like your children to read these books then we will not stop you. Would we like a better process for choosing books, yes, but we appreciate the difficult job librarians and teachers have.

The books that Moms for Liberty and other unassociated people are concerned with are not a target on free speech or any self-identified group of people. Think of it this way: Movies and even CD’s (back in the 90’s) have ratings (i.e., G, PG, PG13, R etc.). This helps guide a parent to know if the movie or music is appropriate for children of a certain age.

If books have the same type of content as rated R movies and CDs with explicit language, then how are we wrong in challenging the books? Is it simply because they’re classified as “literature”?

If the school decided to play a rated R movie in class, would you object? Maybe not, and I can respect that, but people send their children to public schools with a certain level of trust in mind. We trust that the school will have our children’s best interest in mind, that they won’t be put into uncomfortable situations with material that contains violence and sexual content. I for one, would object to rated R movies being played in school.

A topic about age-appropriate content has somehow turned into labeling our group as intolerant and hateful. How did we get to this point as a society? The intolerance and inequality that’s being shown by our community is unfortunate. We’re not preaching that your kids shouldn’t read this material. We’re advocating that our kids not be exposed to age-inappropriate material. We don’t want our children to read books that are equal to a rated R movie and in some cases a pornographic movie. This is the only issue at hand right now.

Let’s practice tolerance and equality for every group in our community and show the true spirit of our great state of Wyoming.