(lengthy and pointless post omitted)
The question and answer (and all posts concerning such) were about what to do going forward. Who was being unreasonable in the initial confrontation was not at any point addressed.
Feel free to familiarize yourself with this issue anytime…
Izzy is exactly right. Here are two personal stories illustrating why healing the rift was a lot more important than who was wrong.
35 years ago, my cousin married a Black woman. His parents refused to see her. The couple would have been morally justified if they had broken off relations with his parents. Instead, they spent years making somewhat obsequious efforts to win the parents over. After the first grandchild was born, the parents finally relented and met their daughter-in-law. They soon became very close. The result was a warm relationship for many years between the parents, their daughter-in-law and their 3 grandchildren.
Five years ago, the daughter of a friend married a brilliant Korean-American doctor. His immigrant parents broke off relations with the couple. In this case, the parents lived on the other coast. The couple allowed the parents’ decision to stand. Everyone lost. The biggest losers were the young man’s parents, since he had been their favorite child. In some moral sense, one might argue that it served them right. However, it would have been far better if the young couple had found a way to overcome the parents’ attitude.
IzzyR, there were three things wrong with your analogy
As was already pointed out, the family supported them. Or, at the very least, she was led to believe they would be supportive and they ended up not being. You can’t fault her for bringing ice cream to the Lactose Intolerate’s meeting if they invited her to bring the ice cream.
The people at the gathering were allowed to do what she was forbidden to do.
I know this one is going to go completely over you, but I’ll bang my head against the monitor in the hopes you understand. Your analogies sucked. Hard. No, harder than that. Keep sucking, I’ll tell you when you stop.
Seriously, they didn’t even come close to describing the situation. You equate being gay to wearing fur at an animal rights event? Gay = pork at a rabbinical conclave? WTF? No one brought the gay girl to purposely piss people off, which it seems is what you assume happened here.
I think the main point here is that when the sister freaked out, the woman apologized and promised not to do it again. Then the sister still was a bitch about it.
Ann Landers in her reply implies that the woman is totaly at fault in this situation. This is off base. The woman has made the effort to reach her sister. She has already apologized. The sister needs to meet her halfway on this issue. The sister has freaked out and put her homophobia ahead of her family. I am glad she is not my sister. Because I wouldn’t put up with this shit for one minute. If my sister did that to another member of my family, she wouldn’t see me again until she learned to cope in the real world.
What’s going to keep me up tonight puzzling and pondering is this:
Why does anyone write to a Ann Landers about problems like this? Does the writer really want Ann Landers to tell her what’s right and what’s wrong? It boggles the mind. Why do people, in the year 2001, still write to Ann Landers?
Could it be that these letters aren’t real? Could it really be that a significant number of people really trust this columnist to tell them how to handle difficult family problems? This doesn’t compute. “How we met” letters, yes. I understand that. But damn, this whole “give me advice newspaper lady” thing seems out-of-place, out-of-time and only slightly more reliable than Madame Cleo. I … don’t… understand…
This, of course, presumes that your relationship with ice cream, like your relatives’ relationship with hot dogs, fulfills the most basic and profound of human longings, such that the bulk of all art ever produced concerns itself in some way with that relationship, and most people consider their lives incomplete if they find it unavailable to them. Indeed, your participation in the greater story of the human race will be characterized largely in terms of the way you handle your food. And your fucking good-for-nothing family, in denying you your ice cream, is thus more or less denying you your humanity.
Quite a presumption. Your analogy sucks.
And defending it badly.
I cannot believe that anyone believes anything that shrivelled old bat has to say. She has pissed me off so many times in the past that I don’t read her anymore because my blood pressure can’t take it. She is so damn out of touch it’s not even funny.
Wet noodle, my ass…she needs to be caned like a vandal in Singapore.
Gotta agree with the OP here…
Back when I was in my early twenties, I had a good friend who was gay. I have had other gay friends since, but this was the guy who was able to change my homophobic attitudes (without being too gung ho about it). Thus it was that I, an inexperienced heterosexual twenty-something, found myself occasionally in Sydney’s gay scene. And yes, the first time I was confronted by two men kissing, I was grossed out. But y’know what I did? Did I complain about it? Fuck no - I dealt with it. I realised guys were going to kiss whether insignificant little me approved or not. So I knew the problem was mine, not theirs.
I’m not American, so I’m not familiar with the person mentioned in the OP - a ratbag shock media type? Fuggeddit!! They aren’t worth the bile.
For openers, you shouldn’t be so gullible as to read that old bag’s column. The public display of you reading her columns as opposed to Cecil’s does not go over well with your fellow dopers, as you now know only too well. I suggest you reiterate the fact that she’s a dumb old bitch, and I hope for the sake of all involved in this thread that it will be accepted that her column sucks ass.
Izzy, get bent.
She rested her hand on the woman’s leg. It’s not like she was copping a feel in front of the family.
For those who are new to human interaction, there is nothing sexual, in and of itself, in touching a persons leg. Christ, my mother will rest her hand on your leg if she’s sitting next to you and speaking to you. Would you find something sexual in that? You wouldn’t if met Mom.
There is nothing offensive in that gesture. It can only be offensive in a sexual context, and that’s not what was going on here. ‘Ohio’s’ sister spazzed, and said sister should be taken to task for it. In my family, the sister would be getting many phone calls…
Oh, I agree that the writer was asking Ann’s advice as to how to resolve the turmoil. And I think that before you can come to a resolution, you need to take a look at the actions of those involved.
I interpret Ann’s response, however, as “Look, lady. You brought this all on yourself. The best you can do now is to grovel some more and hope that sis will forgive your indiscretion and let you back into her good graces.”
Instead a more appropriate response would have been “While your sister overreacted, keep in mind that your coming out probably caught your family off-guard. Most will adjust to this, but some will adjust more slowly than others. Be aware of this and adjust your behavior accordingly. Meanwhile, you’ve apologized to sis and the ball is now in her court. She’s the one with the problem, not you.”
I can’t help but feel that this would have been a non-issue had this couple been a man and a woman. As a gay man, I know what it’s like to have to be guarded in the things my partner and I say when around others, the little gestures we share, the proximity we maintain with each other for fear of “offending” anyone. When a heterosexual couple can share the most intimate details of their relationship with everyone within hearing distance and no one blinks an eye, is it really that offensive for a lesbian to touch her partner’s leg?
Write to a newspaper columnist for advice?
Feh!
I find MUCH more advice here!
Enderw24
Please see my earlier response to kepi.
Strangely, this is also the case with my analogy.
Lux Fiat
Have you considered the possibility that you are getting just a bit carried away with your emotions here? The family accepted her bringing her SO, they just didn’t like the patting. I don’t think someone refraining from physical displays of affection is being deprived of their humanity. But even if one was to consider that a legitimate viewpoint, it is evidently not the case with Hurting in Ohio, who had already indicated that she was willing to avoid these.
spooje
This is an example of the type of silliness that people are capable of when they get too full of righteous indignation. Putting your hand on someone’s leg can have different connotations, depending on the people involved and the circumstances. If you are incapable of recognizing this, I suggest that you make a habit of sitting down next to female co-workers and putting your hand on their legs. You will soon become aware of subtle distinctions that are at present eluding you.
Kepi
This is similar to the point made earlier by SuaSponte. I don’t see how you take this out of AL’s words.
This is undoubtedly true.
Apparently in some cases yes. Why and whether it should be offensive touches on the larger psychological and moral issues of homosexuality. But I think if for whatever reason it is offensive in some circumstances than it is offensive.
Oh, in that case, I guess I must be all wrong. So sad, so sad…
:rolleyes:
“I cannot believe that anyone believes anything that shrivelled old bat has to say.”
—HEY! I happen to be a shriveled old bat myself, and my opinions are just as good as anyone else’s!
By the way, anyone know how long it takes for Ann (and/or Abby) to answer these questions? For all we know, this letter might have been written in 1972 and just replied to this week.
Disagree.
Let’s look at Ann’s first sentence: “For openers, you should keep your hands off Alice’s leg.” A very simple sentence, and one I find impossible to “read” anything into. Ms. Landers places no qualifiers in the sentence, she presents an absolute - the letter-writer should keep her hands off Alice’s leg. It is you, by your attempts to add qualifiers to this pronouncement by Ms. Landers, who is reading too much into this.
And this is the whole point. Listen, I don’t care what advice Ann gave concerning the letter-writer’s relationship with the family - if Ann had told her to beg and grovel, well, sometimes you have to do that with family even when you are in the right. But Ann did not respond thusly: “While you did nothing wrong, it obviously has upset your family. Swallow your pride and apologize again.” Instead she wrote: “You should keep your hands off Alice’s leg.”
Do you see the difference? Hell, Ann didn’t even have to pass judgment on the leg-holding incident: “Your sister is family. Swallow your pride.” But Ann chose to pass judgment, and chose to condemn it.
Sua
Eve,
I’m currently reading Platinum Girl–excellent book with impressively thorough research, by the way–and the jacket photo of the author is, shall I say, Va VA VOOM! Old bat, my Aunt Fanny!
Izzy, you may roll your eyes and construct inept analogies till the cows come home, the fact remains that you are defending the sister’s irrational behavior and Ann Landers’s remarkably bad judgement. Idly resting an arm on one’s lover’s thigh is no reason to have one’s relatives bar the door to one. The sister would not have behaved so abominably if the offending couple had been hetero. You are defending anti-gay discrimination. Shame on you!
I don’t see how you are getting from Point A to Point B. The words “you should” etc. do not imply a judgement or condemnation. They are a statement concerning an action that is (or is not) not to be taken. This can be because the action is morally wrong but also because it is not practical. You should not go through a red light. You should not go through a green light if you happen to observe an idiot in a Mack truck barreling into the intersection against your right of way.
I don’t think the words themselves give any indication one way or another. But in the context of the question, about the difficulties of resolving the family squabble, I think the more reasonable interpretation is that she is advising as a practical matter to avoid exacerbating the situation by engaging in this type of behavior.
goboy
Hey, how much would it hurt your position to stick to the facts? At no point in this thread have I defended the sister’s behavior, or even dealt with its propriety. What I did do is defend " Ann Landers’s … judgement" which I find, in this instance, to be quite good.
“I’m currently reading Platinum Girl–excellent book with impressively thorough research, by the way–and the jacket photo of the author is, shall I say, Va VA VOOM! Old bat, my Aunt Fanny!”
—Aren’t you sweet; and I don’t underestimate a VA VA VOOM from a gay man! But add ten years and 15 pounds to that author’s photo . . . OK, I’m not shriveled; I’m a stout old bat.
By the way, THIS old bat thinks gay sister should have told homophobic sister right there in front of the kids, "Why on earth shouldn’t I touch my own wife on the leg?
**
Your analogies imply that “Hurting in Ohio”'s behaviour was selfish and predicatably offensive, and the disgusted reaction and subsequent shunning by HIO’s sister was entirely defensible.