A Mouthfull of (about) Cotton

I'm sure a great many people have heard about what went down in Indiana with their "Religious Freedom" law - and the subsequent fall out. I'm not going to talk about that.

What's bugging me at the moment are the comments make by Sen. Tom Cotton a few days ago (you can read about it here). The long and short of it is he feels that people should be thankful that we in the US do not treat members of the LGBT community the same way they're treated in places like Iran - in other words, they should be glad they're not killed.

Abhorrent as this idea is (and it really is), I'm troubled by an underlying concept here. He is effectively saying that because we're better than other places, we shouldn't feel the need to try and be better than we are now.

And this is a very dangerous notion.

There is always room for improvement, for us to do better. As we grow and develop and progress, we learn more about both ourselves and the world around us. We develop new perspectives and come to new understandings. We are constantly reevaluating our ideas, notions, and opinions in light of these new perspectives and understandings.

To say that we're doing things is "good enough" is not good enough. Not killing people because of their sexual orientation is good, but it's not good enough. You know what would be really good? Actually treating people like people, and giving them the same respect and rights that you enjoy, Mr. Cotton. That would be "good enough."