{"id":5428,"date":"2019-10-14T03:45:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T10:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=5428"},"modified":"2019-10-14T03:45:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T10:45:45","slug":"ellen-loves-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2019\/10\/14\/ellen-loves-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen Loves Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

This leads perfectly into the Ellen DeGeneres <\/strong>debacle.  Many people were horrified after she was seen sitting next to George W. Bush <\/strong>in the Dallas Cowboys <\/em>VIP suite.  Their seating was happenstance \u2013 Ellen and Portia <\/strong>were invited by Charlotte Jones<\/strong>, the daughter of the Cowboys owner.  The more militant members of our community feel she should have protested, walked out, or done something other than spend time with a man who tried to block gay marriage, went into needless wars, and did other horrific things.  Instead, Ellen stayed and socialized.  She said, \u201cI\u2019m friends with George Bush.  In fact, I\u2019m friends with a lot of people who don\u2019t share the same beliefs that I have.  We\u2019re all different.  And I think we\u2019ve forgotten that that\u2019s OK that we\u2019re all different.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was reminded of when Barbra Streisand <\/strong>received the Kennedy Center Honor <\/em><\/strong>in 2008 during the presidency of George W. Bush.  She could have turned it down.  She didn\u2019t.  The honor is selected by an independent committee.  So, like Ellen, Barbra was invited to something that thrust her into contact with the President.  Although, unlike Ellen, Babs was careful not to be photographed anywhere near Bush.  Streisand later wrote about the experience: \u201cI have never met George W. Bush, but for the past eight years I have been blogging about him and his administration on my website.  I have relayed my frustration at the direction he has taken our country in no uncertain terms.  So it was just as surprising to me as it apparently was to the press that upon meeting President Bush and extending my hand to him, he said to me, \u2018Aw, c\u2019mon, gimme a hug and kiss.\u2019 And then he proceeded to embrace me.  I must say, I found him very warm and completely disarming\u2026even though I think perhaps he was kissing me hello as I was kissing him goodbye\u2026I guess in some small way, he and I proved that we could agree to disagree, and, for that weekend, art transcended politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I think \u2013 people are never one thing.  If I stopped talking to friends with views or actions or traits that I disagree with, I\u2019d have no friends.  Interacting with different-minded people leads not only to many spirited debates and conversations, but also to broader understanding of another point of view.  As gay people, how many times have we asked, \u201cWhy does one part of my life that you don\u2019t understand or agree with define me and scare you?\u201d  We look for acceptance, so it\u2019s hard to argue not accepting others.  I don\u2019t expect to sit down with Bush anytime soon, but I\u2019m sure I\u2019d find him charming.  I may end up liking him more than Ellen, who I find\u2026.well, you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This leads perfectly into the Ellen DeGeneres debacle.  Many people were horrified after she was seen sitting next to George W. Bush in the Dallas Cowboys VIP suite.  Their seating was happenstance \u2013 Ellen and Portia were invited by Charlotte Jones, the daughter of the Cowboys owner.  The more militant members of our community feel she should have protested, walked out, or done something<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5429,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5428\/revisions\/5429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}