I am very sad to see some of the political posts that have come up on my Facebook news feed in the last few days.
It would seem that we are allowing politics to dictate who we will continue to be friends with and I’ve even seen it cause disputes between family members.
Don’t get me wrong, having civil conversations about political opinions can be extremely beneficial to both persons. But, the posts that have appeared in my news feed are not civil, nor thought–provoking. Friends of mine—both supporters of Trump and Hillary—have posted long statuses about how much they hate those who support the other candidate.
Now let me be clear, I have many friends on Facebook whose morals and values I don’t agree with. Yet we are still friends, and I will remain friends with them.
Each and every one of us has a set of morals that we value—and guess what? It is okay that those aren’t the same! We are unique and therefore our opinions will be also.
If I was only friends with people who had the same opinions as I did, then I would never be challenged to grow in my beliefs and possibly even change how I think or the way in which I live my life.
By all means, post about your political opinion, but don’t target your friends. Don’t blame someone for trying to make the best choice for themselves or for their family. Remember, they are choosing the candidate that best aligns with the morals that they value most—and that could be different than yours.
I choose to respect the differences that my friends and I have. I value friendship and relationships with all people—including those that I don’t always agree with. I base my friendships on something much deeper than the political party that they support.
I certainly hope that my character, personality and loyalty as a friend and human being cannot be completely summed up in the support I give to the candidate that I vote for. I would like to think that there is so much more to me than my vote.
If you choose to delete me or other people based on our political opinions then tell me, how tolerant are you?