After a photo emerged of Ellen sitting next to Bush at the Dallas Cowboys’ game with the Green Bay Packers last Sunday, people went on Twitter to criticize her choice of friends. Ellen dedicated her opening monologue on her Tuesday show to address the backlash.

She said, “I’m friends with George Bush. In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have.” She added, “Just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean I’m not going to be friends with them.” She then made a plea to be kind to everyone.

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Personally, I don’t have an issue with who Ellen is friends with and I respect she didn’t back down. I don’t care who anyone is friends with. There are times I’m disappointed in people when I learn they’re friends with a shit-eating troglodyte, but I think to myself, “that’s too bad,” and I move on. The reason I don’t care who you’re friends with is that I don’t want you to give me crap about who I’m friends with…or who I refuse to be friends with.

With that, I say to Ellen, don’t you lecture me about who to be friends with and treat kindly.

I have friends I don’t agree with politically. I have friends who vote Republican, watch Fox News, put toilet paper under instead of over, put ketchup on hotdogs, and even cheer for the Dallas Cowboys. I have friends who are gun nuts. During the buildup to the Iraq War, I was friends with many people who supported the invasion…until they started lying about it (like blaming Iraq for 9/11). After the war, I had some difficulty with those same people when they decided to change the reasoning for the invasion after their first one proved to be total and complete bullshit.