Monday, April 13, 2009

The Cowards of YouTube

A young 12-year-old child posted a video on YouTube about his views on gay marriage. It drew in a lot of criticism and scathing remarks, to say the least, about it. Frankly, I am not surprised by all this nor am I shocked by the comments made to this young child (ranging from being a bigot to demanding his suicide).

The Internet is a great resource and tool to our society. I love it and I use it everyday. But it also has given rise to people saying what they probably wouldn't say to anyone in real life. This youtube kid is a classic example of jerkwads who wouldn't say these things to the kid's face.

A few weeks ago, I was getting off a ramp on I-395 here in the DC area. The lane I was in would continue to get back on a ramp that would go on I-395 in the opposite direction. Naturally, drivers would need to get in the lane I was in and I needed to get in their lane. At the particular time of day that I was driving, it was really crowded in the lane next to me, so I was looking for a gap and had my signal on to merge over. I saw a gap and merged as soon as I could because I knew that many people would not let me over simply because they wanted to go their own way.

Immediately the guy I moved in front of honked his horn. I guess there wasn't as much gap as I thought, but I was pretty sure there was and I moved over without any trouble. In any case, he proceeded to pull over into the lane I had just left and pull alongside me. He shouted at me and I looked over and he flicked me off and called me a fucking prick.

I just smiled at him and kept going. I'll bet he was having a horrible day and I doubt it got any better for him. I was upset at him and it did hurt, but at the same time, I wondered why I was compelled to accept the opinion of some jerk on the road who hardly knows me. But I came to the conclusion that he was a coward and I'm sure he would have called the police on me the moment he felt he was in danger, had I followed him menacingly.

I have other stories I could tell of people behaving like jerks for no reason other than the fact that they are jerks. But this World Net Daily story illustrates perfectly what people will do when they have no expectation of being identified and can take potshots anonymously.

The respondents who called the 12-year-old kid names and demanded that he die are nothing more than evil cowards. They wouldn't say such things to the kid's face (although some might) and they probably would be more reasonable in a face to face discussion. But here on the Internet, where being anonymous is easy, name-calling and hate-filled rhetoric are the order of the day.

This is the enemy that we Christians face. These people are saying exactly what they're thinking. Otherwise they would not have said a damn thing. When we express our beliefs in a higher moral authority than ourselves and do so in public, we are hated by many. There is no sense in debating these immoral, irrational hatemongers.

They have already expressed their desire to see a 12-year-old die only because he opposed gay marriage and believed, as I do, that homosexuality is a sin. There is nothing to say to them. There is only prayer and there is only God's vengeance, which He will unleash when He sees fit, not when I or this 12-year-old witness sees fit.

I pity them and what will happen to those who would rather murder a child than question their own beliefs.