50,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong...

50,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong…

For those of you who may have not heard it, there is an old adage that says “50,000 Frenchman can’t be wrong”. I can’t be sure, but it certainly sounds like a mustard commercial to me. Perhaps it was before my time (as hard as it seems to be). The point is this – we live in a world where the person in the mirror rarely considers themselves to be wrong. It must be the other person’s fault.

I have seen and experienced this over and over again in my life. The world is full of people who consider themselves “good Christians” who are dead set certain that God hates gay men and lesbian women. The average person who feels this way has learned or been taught hatred or distrust of people who are gay or lesbian. If you ask them about their unreasoning hatred, many people will point you in the direction of Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination”. Yet the same person will conveniently stop reading before they reach Leviticus 25:44 to 46 “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.” If you use the first scripture to justify your hatred, you must therefore accept the second. The question then becomes “How many Canadians can I own”? The truth of the matter is there is a term for this. It is called “Displaced Hostility”.

Time and time again I have gone through my life facing people who are sure that there is something wrong with me. To this day there are people where I work who will not get on an elevator with me. There are people who will not speak to me. Why? Because of how I was born – a hermaphrodite. These people, in many cases, have known me for 20 plus years. They are certain that I am some sort of an abomination.

There are people who, to this day, walk up to my sister and say “Why is she always angry”? For those people I have a little story. It was told by Leo Buscaglia, who spent so much of his life lecturing and writing about love and life. Dr. Buscaglia tells of the time he was on an airplane and the passenger in the seat next to him spent much of the flight being rude and nasty to the stewardess. When the passenger asked Dr. Buscaglia what he did for a living, he responded that he lectured about love. The man in the seat next to Leo said “Well thank got someone feels about life like I do.”

Displaced Hostility. Many is the time that people are just downright nasty, yet rather than admit to themselves that THEY are the ones who are angry, they are certain that it is everyone around them.

So if you go through your life, as I have, the subject of unreasoning hatred and anger. Remember…50,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong. Just tell all those Frenchman to calm down, take a long hard look in the mirror, and keep their anger to themselves.

Then read about how 65 roses CANT be wrong.