I don’t mean politics, I mean core beliefs, lifestyles, parenting styles etc…
I’ve broken contact with my African cousin primarily because of homophobic beliefs and a very traditionally conservative mindset. I’m not gay (bi mostly), but I simply can’t tolerate such intolerance. It’s not a case of her saying ‘I wouldn’t be in favor of gay marriage’ but ‘It’s not normal’. In general she expresses some disgust. This isn’t an old woman but a 22yr old female so I was quite shocked enough to politely end it.
A lot of people belief you should always stick with them but I’m not so sure. Would you do something similar with a friend or family member?
I had a best friend through two of the roughest years of my life, and she definitely helped me get through my time of being unable to work and later unable to find someone willing to hire me.
I finally got a job as a cashier in a store owned by Orthodox Chasidic Jewish people. She suddenly shoed a very belligerent anti-Semitic side, despite the fact that she wasn’t practicing any religion. Yet she threatened to report the store for being open on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
I dropped her like a hot potato. I am extremely tolerant, and couldn’t take her comments.
I have numerous friends who have violently different beliefs.
So long as we can keep away from those subjects, we’re fine.
The friends I’ve had to cut off are the ones who refuse to let it lie. The ones who HAVE to bring up the subject, every goddamn time, and who will NOT accept simply changing the subject.
I was once asked along with others if my grandparents had been racist. They’ve all been dead for 20 years or more by now. I said that one set was way ahead of the curve and were not and had not been, even when measured against their contemporaries and the standards of the era they grew up in.
My other set, I described as wanting to be racist, but lacking the conviction to keep it up when they met an actual minority. In other words, they had been raised with a certain set of beliefs, but when those beliefs were challenged by reality, they let go of them pretty easily. They themselves didn’t see the contradiction in this and would retain their attitudes the rest of the time. It was like the doctor and the shopkeeper ceased being Chinese and became humans once they were known personally.
When I was young and dating my now wife, I never took her to meet my Grandma as my wife is Chinese, and I feared a scene. I convicted my Grandma in absence of a trial, so to speak.
My Grandmother was a very sweet, thoughtful person. She simply grew up in a different time and carried the out-of-date attitudes from that time. In hindsight, I regret not having introduced my wife and even reducing my contact with her in her last years. I’m sure she would’ve been fine and perhaps even grown more as a human being. I didn’t give her the opportunity and not only that, I avoided her in the end. I feel a great deal of guilt over it.
I tell you all this to give some context as to where I’m coming from. Perhaps your cousin can grow and learn. Do you like and enjoy her company otherwise? Or is the homophobia a last straw on top of many? If it’s the former, I suggest carefully telling her about your own orientation and giving her a growth opportunity. It will be tricky and she might say hurtful things, and you can’t take it personally if she does. On the other hand, she might learn a thing or two and be forced to challenge herself.
The downside is the same as cutting her out, but the upside is better for all concerned. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. But if someone decides in advance that the horse won’t drink, they won’t even lead it to water.
All of my Wife’s family are Trump supporters. We still talk.
I did cut off a friendship from a guy I had known since high-school. I work for the government, and he would keep going off about how easy I have it because I work for the government (small county) Pissed me off.
For informational purposes, I do work for small county government, doing quite well. I worked last Sunday, and came in at 5:00 am to do some database maintenance work on last Thursday.
My Wife that also works for the GOV worked tremendous amounts of time in the last four months often going in at 4am. Yea, that’s fucked up, but don’t dare say we don’t work and have it easy.
Would you be friends with someone who expressed support for the 9/11 attacks but wasn’t related to any terrorist organisations or practiced extremist beliefs?
I have broken contact with people who were too offensive for me to tolerate, which means they were very offensive, but I’ve never made a declaration that I’ll never talk to them again. People change, I’ve changed, time can make a difference.
I have severely restricted my interactions with the bulk of my family over some pretty serious disputes about politics, religion, and tolerance of people that are different.
They are usually the ones who bring up such subjects, as I am pretty much the black sheep of the family, and they enjoy a good pile on. So, even though I could debate each of them in turn, and when I do, I usually get them to at least accept that I have a valid viewpoint, when it’s the mob action, it’s pretty much just all the abuse they have saved up for all the liberals thrown at me all at once. I avoid family activities for the most part, showing up only a couple of times a year these days. I even sent my dad an email for his 70th birthday recently, because anything more involved would have inevitably been drawn into some sort of argument.
There is an argument to be made for maintaining contact to be an instrument of change in them by example and dialogue. But there are those who are just too caustic to be around for any length of time and who are so set in their hate that only a traumatic event has a chance of breaking the mindset.
I’ll completely agree with TreacherousCretin’s assessment of earlier posts.
I have a good friend who is a fairly orthodox Jew. He well knows I am an atheist (although Jewish variety) and I often ask him questions about Jewish law (since I find it sometimes interesting) but neither of us ever tries to change the other and we are still good friends. Even though it is sometimes annoying that he won’t answer his phone or respond to email today.
But if someone whose beliefs seriously conflicted with mine help bringing it up, I’m outta there. My son’s father-in-law is a serious Trumpist (Trumpeter?), but he and my son never discuss politics, so he still visits.
I would prefer that they were more tolerant, and it is possible that my snubbing them at holidays and birthdays acts as “harm” to them, but that’s their choice, and if that small amount of “harm” causes them to rethink things and become more tolerant, then that is the level and type of harm that I would wish upon them and all other bigots.
I do know that they perform harm upon me because of their beliefs, in that the screaming and yelling does me no psychological good.
I do know that they do not mind harm coming to others, if that is what is necessary for them to not to need to learn to tolerate differences, but I do not think (or at least I hope) that they would get the same type of pleasure in seeing the victims of their choices suffering as other bigots do.