Entry tags:
On changing people's minds
I appear to have actually done it.
The target: a guy who actually respected my opinions and wanted to hear me out (this part is mandatory, I think), probably had Asperger's, and was the son of a person in the anti-gay marriage league (so his opinion was at least partly hereditary).
(I mention the Asperger's because I think that without it, he'd have got the "gays are bad" part that is the unacknowledged backdrop of most anti-gay marriage sentiment. As-is, the papered-on-top excuse objections were his actual objections.)
How I actually did it: in a chat program I, in as noncombative a way as possible, explained my position, and gently informed him that his concerns on gay couples' kids were wrong (research round-up) and also I side-eye the "but the definition of marriage is ~Christian~" position, since no-one complains hugely about or constantly proposes a new term for civil weddings.
Evidence that I did it: he dropped the issue and shortly removed the "marriage = man + woman" page from his likes on FB.
It is a heady feeling, to know that people can change for the better and know that one has caused that oneself. So, uh, there's your daily positivity. I should probably feed myself.
The target: a guy who actually respected my opinions and wanted to hear me out (this part is mandatory, I think), probably had Asperger's, and was the son of a person in the anti-gay marriage league (so his opinion was at least partly hereditary).
(I mention the Asperger's because I think that without it, he'd have got the "gays are bad" part that is the unacknowledged backdrop of most anti-gay marriage sentiment. As-is, the papered-on-top excuse objections were his actual objections.)
How I actually did it: in a chat program I, in as noncombative a way as possible, explained my position, and gently informed him that his concerns on gay couples' kids were wrong (research round-up) and also I side-eye the "but the definition of marriage is ~Christian~" position, since no-one complains hugely about or constantly proposes a new term for civil weddings.
Evidence that I did it: he dropped the issue and shortly removed the "marriage = man + woman" page from his likes on FB.
It is a heady feeling, to know that people can change for the better and know that one has caused that oneself. So, uh, there's your daily positivity. I should probably feed myself.