Closed-mindedness Hits Home

I'm breaking into first person for this one; it's a story.

We were sitting on the couch eating pizza, dismayed that Ratatouille wasn't on Netflix but glad that it was warm enough outside for us to kick around the soccer ball. For our regular mid-week hang out sessions, my friend Colin and I alternate going to his house and mine (or rather, my aunt and uncle's home, since I live with them).

Today, my 58-year-old aunt was home, looking at some financial forms on her computer. She was sitting at the desk across the room, immersed in my cousin's taxes, muttering some numbers and summations under her breath. I picked a piece of sausage off my pizza and started to say something to Colin about a class assignment that deals with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Suddenly, my aunt looked up, thoughtful.

"Yeah, what do you think about all this?" she asked.

Uncertain which of us she was addressing and of what the "all this" meant, we waited. Soon, she clarified that she was asking Colin what he thinks about gay marriage.

Colin is bisexual but my aunt doesn't know it. Respectful as ever, he began to state his opinion without revealing his sexual orientation.

My aunt interrupted.

"You know, I watched this thing on the TV the other day, and it just really clarified the whole thing for me," she said. "This man was talking and he said that marriage is something more than what people are taking it as."

Interested, I asked who the man was.

My aunt couldn't remember.

What show was it? She couldn't remember. What else did he say? Not sure. It had been a few days.

"But I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. He just laid it out really clearly for me."

My aunt is an intelligent person. She holds a college degree, has raised six children, volunteers monthly, runs a rental business, and works two part-time jobs. She reads the newspaper everyday and also gets news on TV and on the internet. I've never heard her speak like this before.

Maybe I'm not being fair to her, highlighting this particular conversation. But I couldn't help but feel tense the entire time. Forget that my bisexual friend was there. (He respects others' beliefs just as he hopes they'll respect his and was not disturbed.)

The thing that made me put my pizza down and not want to eat anymore was the way my aunt so faithfully confided in some mysterious stranger from the television screen. She knows better than to adopt someone else's opinion without thinking critically about it. When she does cite someone else, she knows enough to remember their name and position, not to mention context.

But, this time, she didn't. And on such an important issue... The conversation put me back in an interview with a 25-year-old Hoosier man who converted to Islam two years ago. He won't tell his grandma he's Muslim because "all she knows about us are the stereotypes she gets off of Fox News."

The source expressed concerns not only about the way Muslims are portrayed in the media, but also about the propensity of Americans, especially those of the older generation, to believe everything they see.

As a journalist, I try to be very critical of the media I consume. It was disheartening to see a family member follow so blindly.

Next time: How to be Christian without being a "blind sheep"