On Dealing with Intolerance

How does one handle the intolerance of others, especially when those others are ones oldest, dearest friends?

A couple of weeks ago I was in Pittsburgh with my girlfriend visiting some college friends. One of these friend’s best friend from high school, who I’ve also come to adore, is gay (we’ll call him A). A is quite open about his sexual orientation and quite comfortable talking about it and often cracking jokes about it. Let’s just say A makes no attempts to lead you to believe he is anything but exactly who he is.

So Saturday afternoon, we meet an old friend of my girlfriend for lunch. We have a nice time at a little Lebanese place. He tells us he’s going to be out in the same neighborhood we are Saturday night, and we leave saying we’ll try to call and hook up later in the evening. As we drive back to our friends’ house we start to discuss the lunch and the coming evening, and my girlfriend tells me that we can’t meet up with her friend if A is going to be with us… “it would just be awkward.” Apparently, he’s not comfortable with A’s sexuality. This got the old wheels spinning…what is the reaction one ought have to a friend, a dear friend, who maintains this worldview that simply will not jive or mesh with one’s own?

I suppose the moral highroad would be confrontation of some sort, a sort of coaxing in the direction of tolerance. I’m sure that our friend, and many of my friends from the small town I call home, would warm to the personality of A, who is just a riot to hang out with. I would love to be able to say that given this situation I would invite my friends along without a mention of A and force them into a friendly interaction…force them toward change. But this is just my head in the clouds. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if simply exposing someone who leans toward closed-mindedness to a variety of people would open them up? I fear that what would truly happen is defensiveness, a closing off of avenues of conversation, a willful avoidance of commonality. But then again, what if, by some off chance, all would have a good time and get along famously? Is it worth the risk?

Unfortunately, the path my girlfriend chose and the path I often do choose with many friends in this and other morally sticky situations, is the path of compartmentalization. I find it exceedingly easy to say to myself, “Yes, self, your old friend is flawed in his thinking and has done some wrong, but he’s still your friend and he still has many good qualities and he is still good to you.” Its so simple, the bad things, while acknowledged, are tucked away neatly in a little box and set aside…the good times roll on. The ease with which I do this, the ease with which I see my friends do this, regularly is, to be quite honest, somewhat frightening. Does this loyalty behoove either party, or is it actually one of the many problems of human interaction? We can, it seems, set aside almost any dastardly deed if we can find some redeeming quality…even if that quality is just that he’s a good drinking buddy. Or is this just immaturity? Does this fade with time, or does our daily tolerance of intolerance go on?