Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[dreadgeek]

Ranger:

One other question. Given what you've posted below which would you prefer in the following scenario.

It's nearing Election Day 2012. Someone is really only now making their decision. Let us say that there are three matters to be decided that could have direct bearing on how your life may be going forward. They are:

1) The Presidency
2) One of your senators and your representative in the House
3) An omnibus gay rights law (protection in job and housing along with marriage equality)

Now, this person is fair minded but perhaps not the most informed person around. They have two people talking to them about the election. One believes that the President is a Kenyan-born, Marxist Muslim who hates America. They are supporting the two right-wing candidates who have made clear their opposition to all things related to gay rights. They will vote to do away with Social Security and Medicare. The other person believes that the President is an American-born Christian who is a more-or-less center-left Democrat. They are supporting two center-left Democrats who will vote against any attempt to dismantle Social Security and Medicare and who have expressed full-throated support for gay rights. The first person is telling the first-time, low-information voter that gays and lesbians are a threat to the family and that Barack Obama wants to destroy America from the inside and is a tool of Hezbollah. The second person is telling the our low-information voter friend that gays and lesbian couples are subject to all manner of discrimination because of who they love.

Are you going to try to suggest that it really doesn't matter which set of memes takes hold in this person's head? Are you going to say that you do not have a preference for how that little thought experiment would turn out in the real world, given the stakes? Or do you honestly believe that there is no relationship between how any of the parties believe and how they will actually vote?

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Ranger Butch Force

But why would they say that in the first place? At that point, to me from my me space, I would think that either A) they don't know you very well, B) they may, in their mind, think that it's ok to ask such a question to you for whatever reason or C) they are narrow minded in thinking that only white people can be smart, educated, and articulate which is obviously not true given that the US president is not white.



I, too, have been in such a situation before and it was not pleasant. Because having the affair in the first place was wrong (I don't care what the reason was), I told all of them that I didn't want to hear it anymore and that they needed to figure out what they wanted to do with the situation. All three are good friends of mine, and still are to this day. Yes, I was concerend that one of my friends was going to be hurt in the end. It was not healthy for me to get in the middle of that.



In this instance, I would have let the menstrual believe what they want to believe. Their mind is made up. But then, when what they believed in didn't happen, then maybe some people in that group would make up their own minds and say "Hey, you know in the end, that all sounded pretty silly that our menstrual cycles would get out of whack". Live and learn.

People need to make up their own minds. Even if the proof is right in their face and they choose not to see it with their own eyes, that's their decision.

Let it be.