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The 'A Word'

"YOU support murdering children?" 

It was a simple exchange. We were talking about faith in the modern world, and I foolishly dropped the 'A Word'. Hinting my feelings in relation to this controversial topic, I was immediately stopped in my tracks. My words had led to a judgement being made about my character and my personality.

This headline from Waterford Whispers News summarises what has happened to the debate in Ireland:



It's ironic, because since the debate has come into general public consideration in Ireland, it has almost become more of a taboo. A highly emotionally-charged debate, both sides will shoot the other down with provocative statements. People are afraid to open their mouths about it in case they are ridiculed for their views. This is exacerbated by the far-left and far-right musings on social media, suggesting that there is little or no middle-ground in this debate.

Whatever side of the tracks you are on, or whether you have made up your mind, I would encourage you to be tolerant and listen. Maybe don't interject and insist that the other side is wrong, instead respect that people have views that differ from yours. There will be people who don't agree with you, and that's just the way of the world.

"Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice" - Shakespeare.

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