Work Text:
Let us consider, for a moment, that there is an apple tree growing in someone's backyard.
You hate that apple tree. You hate how it looks, you hate that it grows so nicely, you hate that there are people who go to your neighbor's house and eat apples all day long, and talk about how wonderful the apples are, and make pies from it, and fritters, and when there are newcomers or parties, the apple tree is always there, ready to give its apples to whoever wants to eat one.
You have an orange tree in your backyard. It is also strong, and bears fruit like clockwork. But the fruit itself is not as delicious, and it can make people sick, and no one wants to eat your oranges. No one visits your yard and no one asks about your tree, which is watered with venom as you stare at the apple tree and seethe.
You don't like apples. You never have. Apples are disgusting and wrong. No matter how loud you cry, those that do hear you, turn away. You have a very small group of people who will eat your oranges because, frankly, they are too scared to eat anywhere else. Or maybe they also like eating poisoned fruit. It doesn't matter because at least they are on your side.
Even when they get sick. Even when they stop coming over entirely, at least they are not hanging out with the apple eaters.
And there are so many of them, and the apples are healthy and well loved. People go over all the time to eat apples. And you say, "What about the children? They shouldn't eat apples, you're forcing it on them!"
And your neighbor replies, "I have pruned the low branches and my fence is high." And that is true, even you can't see the tree unless you climb the fence. "If the children get in and eat the apples, I have done all I can to stop them reaching."
"But adults might shake the tree and give them apples!"
"They are in my yard," your neighbor replies. "What they do with my tree is not my concern. I am not force feeding them apples. They are here by choice, and eat by choice, and I have done nothing to tell them the tree is here. Their treatment of it doesn't overrule its right to exist."
Because the tree is hidden away from the public and only people who search for it will find it. Because it is not in the schools and the churches and the streets. No one, your neighbor says, thinks that children should be eating apples if they aren't old enough to reach them themselves.
The apple eaters don't like people who force others to eat apples. They shun them. You don't have enough orange eaters to shun one way or another – not that you would need to, because oranges are flawless, aren't they?
And that answer is infuriating. Because some people are allergic to apples. Some people have never had them and that should not be their first taste of fruit. Some people don't know they like oranges, that oranges are better for them.
And you hate that apple tree. You hate it.
But it's just an apple tree.
Its existence is not a sin.
Some people prefer apples. Some people may take a bite and never eat again. Some people, yes, eat of the apple tree too young. But there are other apple eaters around who can help make the apple tree feed apple eaters only. And everyone else can go to an orange grove.
Let us consider that your oranges are delicious and fruitful and you have so many orchards that the apple tree is only a curiosity for some. That tree is still allowed to exist. You do not own your neighbor's backyard. You cannot control who they allow into their house. The fence is high and the low branches are pruned.
Just because you don't like apples doesn't mean they shouldn't exist.
So get the fuck over yourself and eat your oranges with your friends.
And, to those who are eating oranges, to those who want to eat apples, the backyard is open. The fence is high, but you can come in if you are ready and old enough to join the apple eaters. If you like the apples, feel free to stay. If you don't, then at least you can say you tried them. You will not be judged for an aversion to apples.
Even you who grow orange trees, be they plentiful or barren, you are welcome to try the apples any time. You are welcome, even, to take one home and eat it in the dark where no one can see you do it.
You are not allowed to scream across the fence to the apple eaters that they are wrong and that apples are wrong. You are not allowed to chop the tree down.
You do not own your neighbor's backyard.