How to express oneself is a personal choice. But just know that hate speech is not rational; its effect is cumulative and it undermines other freedoms as it spreads.
Hysterical cheers swept through the flock like gusts of wind across a wheat field. Krak stood silent, smiling, soaking in the sounds as if each was a cry of adoration for him personally. In the frenzy, three innocent gulls were pecked to death.
I believe that the more confident you are in your beliefs and viewpoints, the more generous you can be with beliefs and viewpoints that differ from your own. Courtesy, kindness, and polite and sincere discourse are possible and vital to the health of any society.
If we keep enforcing the “my religion is better than yours” game—if we keep squashing the religious freedom of another by insisting on the exclusivity of our own—we’re not going to make it.
Once upon a time, when stars and sunsets were still in fashion and the world had not yet lost its glow of fresh wonder, there lived a Princess. A wondrous, one-of-a-kind Princess she was: Princess of All Things You Can Neither See Nor Touch.
I spent three days living as though in the future—where we can live our own faith, and respectfully allow others the same right, where students and mothers and artists of many cultures all share the same visions.