I received a comment on my Tree Hunting post yesterday from a new visitor from "Can I Change A Life" blog (who for some reason now shows as anonymous, but Blogger has been acting quite bizarrely all day). I followed her comment back to her blog and she has an interesting post about a comment that Elton John made recently about that if he had it his way, organized religion would be banned. Her post talked about intolerance against gays in organized religion in general and it got me thinking as well (good job Janet). I posted the following comment to her blog:

"I can appreciate your post on another one of the musicians I grew up listening to and had some of the same reactions to the article you refer to. It occurred to me that everyone is prejudiced to some degree or another (some more than others of course), even if by 'prejudiced' all you mean is pre-conceived opinions about a group, religion, race, culture, political affiliation or whatever. These prejudices will manifest in all sorts of ways from the alcohol-induced rantings of one star or the heckling induced rants of another. The thing that I find annoying is when a member of one group that experiences prejudice, like Mr. Dwight, thinks that gives them the right to be prejudiced against another group. I experienced some of the most horrific prejudice invoked violence when I worked in the South-Central Los Angeles area by blacks against Asians that lived in the same neighborhoods. It just astounded me at the time that one group that has been so vocal about the prejudice against them for so long could be so openly, vocally and violently prejudiced against another race."

I have my own thoughts on why this happens and why people behave this way, but I would like to hear what others think. Your thoughts?