People's discomfort with the disabled

A lot of people are uncomfortable around disabled people, unless there is someone in their immediate family with a disability. I can understand the discomfort on some level. You never quite know how to talk to them or approach them. If you work with them your first instinct is to do everything for them when in fact a lot of them can do things on their own.

My issue with people's attitude towards the disabled, is with those people that are purely ignorant. Whenever people hear that a residence or facility for the developmentally challenged is about to open in their neighborhood or nearby, they lose it. They start petitioning to have the agency blocked from opening the house. People seem to forget that these people are not their disability. They not defined by what ails them. Just as you and I are not defined by our respective jobs.

People worry about their children's safety, which is fine an understandable, but you can't expect it to be okay for you to impede on other people's rights just because you paid $500,000 for your house in a nice neighborhood and don't want anyone else there. The developmentally disabled have the same rights that everyone else has and people should just grow up and get over it.