Anonymous asked: I would like to express a concern I had with a comment of yours on how to deal with homophobic “Betty” from high school. In fact, I got really mad when reading that because I realized that your advise applies to Betty as well as Anon. Betty may just as well be thinking, “oh, don’t listen to a thing Anon says, s/he is just sick and can’t help it if s/he thinks gays should be able to get married.” If you were to hear someone say that to you, how angry would you get?(cont.)
continued:
You, are teaching the same things bigoted people use: to ignore opposing argument. My motto is “if you have a strong opinion, that means you don’t understand the other side well enough. In this scenario, both Betty and Anon are exposed to, however opposing, bias cultures. But both are humans who need to realize that having a strong sense of morality does not make the other wrong, disillusioned, or corrupt. In fact, shouldn’t they celebrate that they both believe in goodness and morality?
from my response in the same ask, embiggened for emphasis:
Important Note: this is advice for day-to-day keeping your own sanity around people you can’t avoid, not long-term dealing with homophobic/racist/etc friends, where the better advice is to stand up for yourself / your views, without being intentionally provocative.
This was on the original post the whole time! Come on, anon! Read the whole post!
Also I take exception to the fact that they should celebrate that they “both believe in goodness and morality.” Outside of movies, everyone believes in goodness and morality. People aren’t evil.
People stone adulterers to death out of a belief in goodness and morality. People burn ‘witches’ out of a belief in goodness and morality. Countless other examples. It’s not anywhere near good enough, in my opinion.
And sure my advice DOES apply to Betty as well as Anon. They’re people with strongly held, conflicting beliefs that have to otherwise be friends. It’s high school, you don’t have a lot of options.
