The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The South Marysburgh Mirror ~~ 7 7 BIGOTRY My youngest grandson, Colby, (he's nine) has given us some unusual gifts on Christmas and other occasions. He knows Valerie and I are addicted to crosswords, not the cryptic types, just the normal and so gave us a desk calen- dar pad and each sheet ( a day) holds a New York Times crossword. I like the calendar because they also have the answers on the back. Last Christmas, among other things we got a calendar desk pad with a cartoon from Non Sequitor on each page. Those of you who get the Saturday Star see Non Sequitor in the coloured comics. This pad features among other characters a most precocious child and her enigmatic father. One that stuck in my mind had a series of frames where the young girl was asking how words were made up. Her fa- ther gave several answers and then she said, what about war? Her father answered. This comes from the phase We Are Right and that is the root cause of the problem. In another discussion she accuses her father of being a Flat Earth Bigot and this twigged my interest in bigots and big- otry. This interest came to the fore when reading the letters to the editor in our local newspapers in the last few weeks. One must look at the meaning of words so I first looked in the dictionary for the definition of Bigot -- hypocrite, person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opin- ions and prejudices. A good definition of a bad part I sup- pose, so Ilooked in a Thesaurus for additional descriptions which include zealot, fanatic, racist, sexist, male chauvinist pig, chauvinist. Looking next at bigotry produced -- intoler- ance for those who are different or who have different ideas -- narrow mindedness, closed minds or 'the disease of ignorance of morbid minds' (Thomas Jefferson). We have so many examples of bigotry in past history and sorry to say in our modern society that one wonders if the world can ever change for the better. I think so. Remember for century's belief in a flat earth and that the sun and the moon revolved around the earth was a religious and scientific certainty. Those who questioned this were subjected to torture, imprisonment and even death as heretics. Slavery was supported by religious and secular laws and re- sulted.in horrific destruction of countries in Africa or Asia. Indeed the last vestige of 'legal' discrimination has only been removed in recent time in North America and still ex- ists in other nations around the world. Even the lifting of 'legal' discrimination does not result in the cleaning up of the bigotry that exists in individuals' minds. I can vividly recall the struggle that went on and indeed still does with respect to equal rights for both male and female in the workplace. Cleaning up discrimination was under- taken with resolve in the Ontario Public Service and re- sulted in such -- sometime humorous -- expunging of sem- blances of inequality as renaming classes within the classi- fication and pay system from tailors and seamstresses to Sewers. I shudder at the outbursts of bigotry in our local papers. The hateful threats of eternal damnation to those who hold different views on sexuality and support same sex unions remind me of the flat earth bigots. Remember that itis a common thread of all bigots that their particular brand of hatred is supported by the "Word of God' in some scripture somewhere. The same rigid belief that We Are Right that has given rise in the past and continues to do so today to wars, uprising and killing around the world. I suppose we have to face the fact that in all societies there exist lunatic fringes which developed sects, cults, gangs, clubs and organizations that claim exclusivity and reject others who are different, who do not believe as they do or have different ethnic backgrounds. All we can hope for is that in our own society we teach tol- erance and the rights of each member of society is protected Continued on page 9 Country Shears Family Hairstyling 2058 COUNTYRD17 112 KM. FROM MILFORD Beenie), Call Linde at 476 sp0 EE CLOSED TUESDAY & SUNDAY si