Dean definitely comes from a different background than the other men on The Bachelorette, and we’ll meet his father when he sees him again for the first time in two years, on the hometown dates. Prior to the episode, Dean took to Instagram to ask fans to be kind. “I’m asking for a favor: when I said my father was eccentric, I was not referring to his Sikh faith or the turban he wears on his head,” Dean wrote on Instagram this weekend.
“I’m not asking you to spare his feelings (or mine) but instead to be cognizant and accepting of the millions of people that belong to the Sikh community. Although he and I are not close, I respect my father’s decision to follow his heart and pursue the life he has chosen,” he continued. “Let us not criticize him for his appearance or his beliefs because by doing so we are disparaging an entire faith and culture that includes millions of people. And I know we are all better than that. That is all (for now).”
So what exactly is the Sikh community? Well, it’s a way of life that is actually practiced by over 20 million people in the world; it preaches a message of remembrance and devotion to God, truthful living, social justices, and equality of mankind; it condemns blind rituals and superstitions. Sikhs aim to find the divinity within everything and everybody they meet.
Their beliefs reportedly include — there is one God, for all people of all religions; the soul both lives and dies before it becomes the human form; the path to achievement can be obtained through earning an honest living, living as a householder, and avoiding temptations and sins; and that all men and women of all race, religion or sex are equal.
HollywoodLifers, did you know about Sikhism before this?