more thoughts on Methodist news

Rereading last night's very sleepy post - I realize I sort of left out a couple of key details.

As my dad & I were discussing this, if I remember correctly, he'd been uncomfortable with the idea of gay clergy mostly because of some broad general conceptions of "what gay people are like".

Now this is my dad we're talking about here - as I've mentioned before, my folks are very decent people. The thing is that I don't think they know a lot of gay people. So it's much easier for them, having few gay friends, to make broad generalizations.

Ever read that Monkeysphere thing? That's exactly what was going on in this discussion I had with my dad. He was thinking in terms of generalities. I was talking about friends.

Y'know...sometimes I wish there was some way to just take the people who are the most enthusiastic leaders of some of the most divisive stuff that's going on these days, and drop 'em in the middle of New York City. Make 'em hold down a regular job in a regular office, ride the subway, live in an apartment building with a bunch of different kinds of people.

The hope being that just seeing all sorts of different kinds of people every day, working with them, commuting with them, seeing them out in the park on a nice day - that gradually an awareness of the similarities (we all want affection, companionship, food, a roof over our heads) would start to chip away at the generalizations, while at the same time realization that the less healthy stuff people do also happens with all kinds of people could work it's way in through the broadening cracks in a formerly closed mind.

Probably wouldn't work, but I do enjoy imagining one of these people that wants to demonize any particular group of people suddenly being set down in a situation where they have to cooperate with members of that group - and every other imaginable group too - to make a living.

would take more than a quick blog entry to really explain it but that's one of the things I really like about living in New York - at least in the circles in which I travel, there's just not a lot of room for fear of "others". Being intolerant would take so much work, it's just not worth it.

does that make any sense at all?

Oh well. Happy for a quiet rainy day at home today. Then I'll be sailing all day tomorrow - looks like a good first day of schooner season! And by the end of yesterday I was feeling like I absolutely needed to get out on the river this weekend - best way to shake loose some of that work stress.