Posts by Emma Hart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Everybody stay right there & don't post too much!
Heh, I have some gay porn I need to knock out this afternoon anyway.
-
Towards the end of the Crusaders-Bulls game, I remarked to my partner that the Crusaders were playing like the Hurricanes had on Friday: when they had the ball, you didn't really feel like they were going to score.
I can't see the Chiefs beating the Bulls, particularly not at Loftus, but my heart will still be backing them. Will they have Kahui back?
-
Certainly a useful rhetorical step along the road to enlightenment for many people, albeit not a good place to stop and down tools?
In some cases, yes. Sometimes - and I in no way want to imply that it's the case here - politeness itself becomes a weapon, when you're dealing with issues that are emotional. So you stay polite and ignore the fact that there might be an emotional impact in passing judgement on people's most intimate decisions, or fitness as parents, or right to equality, and then get all 'surprised and hurt' when people get angry. Derailing for Dummies covers this in a few different sections:
Don’t worry about silly things like their feelings - c’mon, they’re grownups, aren’t they! The only thing that matters is defending your discrimination as completely fair and to avoid examining your prejudiced arguments in ways that may challenge them. You could even drop this little bomb: "You are damaging your cause by being angry, real understanding can only happen if all sides are respectful and patient".
Not only do you come across as a smug, self-righteous asshat (though you may prefer the term “bigger person”) you can also manage to subtly make them feel guilty about their anger, as though it’s undeserved! Everybody wins! Well, except them of course.
In emotional matters like gay rights or child abuse, people tend to be carrying the scars from the last battle. So even if the current person is being perfectly polite and considerate, there's an underlying anger because you're having to defend this, yet again. Happens on both sides, of course, but an issue like gay marriage is obviously more personal for one side than the other.
That doesn't mean abandoning intellectual discussion to emotive wrangling. But I've said here before, if you're talking about something like rape or child abuse, speak as you would if you were speaking to a victim - because this is the internet, and you probably are. Yes, that means politeness, but it also means gentleness and empathy - something which I thought was completely missing from Tess's response to Giovanni.
I touched on it too when I talked about moderation, that pretty much the hardest thing to deal with is someone who doesn't swear and isn't abusive, but is still upsetting a chunk of your community.
-
'Some of my best friends are Emma Hart.'
Yeah, it could work.
Oddly, this morning has included the discovery that there are two of me. That explains a LOT.
-
That's why I really don't care that Tess has been nice and polite. Give me Craig's vitriol any day. At least it's honest.
Which is more or less what Craig and I said back on page 1. I've had the experience of discovering that an acquaintance was using me in a 'some of my best friends are' defence. Utterly polite, and to me, utterly repulsive. It's not the words that offend me, but the underlying sentiment.
one of the great indignities of our time is that we are forcing gays to make the case of why they deserve equal rights.
Can I just get that printed on some kind of sign and stick it up by my monitor to remind myself of my, y'know, original point?
-
Ah, preview button. Must use preview button. Let me do that again so it's readable.
Just as it is unfair to taint all clergy by the actions of a few, the same goes for gay activists:
Yeah, that's the same. That's exactly the same. See the way his organisation covered up for him, and actively concealed and enabled his abuse? See how their instinct was to protect 'gay activism' over the children in there care?
No? So, not really an appropriate comparison, is it? Unless its point was to prove how much more morally LGBT Youth Scotland has behaved than the Catholic Church.
It's not the abuse per se, it's the cold-blooded cover-up. And no, it's not over, not until prominent people in the Catholic church stop saying things like
Happily, I think most of Australia was enjoying delighting in the beauty and goodness of these young people… rather than, than dwelling crankily, as a few people are doing, on old wounds
Bishop Anthony Fisher is still an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, yes?
It's not over while people are still making excuses for abuse. It was just a few bad apples. All the other churches were doing it. We didn't know. It's all in the past now. We're victims too you know. Excuses. Excuses for the inexcusable.
-
Just as it is unfair to taint all clergy by the actions of a few, the same goes for gay activists:
Yeah, that's the same. That's exactly the same. See the way his organisation covered up for him, and actively concealed and enabled his abuse? See how their instinct was to protect 'gay activism' over the children in there care?
No? So, not really an appropriate comparison, is it? Unless its point was to prove how much more morally LGBT Youth Scotland has behaved than the Catholic Church.
It's not the abuse per se, it's the cold-blooded cover-up. And no, it's not over, not until prominent people in the Catholic church stop saying things like
Happily, I think most of Australia was enjoying delighting in the beauty and goodness of these young people… rather than, than dwelling crankily, as a few people are doing, on old wounds
Bishop Anthony Fisher is still an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, yes?
It's not over while people are still making excuses for abuse. It was just a few bad apples. All the other churches were doing it. We didn't know. It's all in the past now. We're victims too you know. Excuses. Excuses for the inexcusable.
-
Okay, I'm cooking dinner, I don't have time to engage on this, and I've had the most 'fascinating' day. But we're in serious danger of losing civility here on both sides. Can we keep a lid on it please?
Otherwise it's that NIN Kirk-Spocking video...
-
But it was bloody close and a little strange when the fog rolled in. We were sitting behind some very obnoxious Hurricanes fans, so the final result was needed.
Crusaders' shamans needed the practice. But srsly, how cold WAS it? Because it looked fairly arctic. Watching players run across the field trailing clouds of steam behind them like Thomas the Tank Engine was quite bizarre.
-
We ended up with an Anglican minister who was a friend of my father, and a fairly non-religious service.
Lovely guy, lovely service. Hot bridesmaids.