This is probably not coming up for others as commonly as it is for me, but there is some article from a gay couple that said, “please de-friend me if you are planning on voting for Mitt Romney”. He goes on and rants about how he doesn’t want to have any friends who are voting for Mitt Romney because he supports DOMA and is just anti-gay and anti-women in general.
Ok, so, as a gay man myself I am sympathetic to the idea of hating Romney over these positions. I also think that even if you aren’t gay, it should upset you that Romney supports those policies.
But, unfriending, or de-friending someone over their political ideas is so stupid I can’t even fathom it.
So today I posted, “Please de-friend me if you think de-friending someone on facebook over their political opinions is a good idea. I can’t believe people would actually be so stupid. Seriously. Don’t even say goodbye. Just do it.”
I don’t have any friends who would ever even consider voting for Romney. It’s not just a political difference, but a serious character flaw. I’m with that couple, some votes are just indefensible.
I won’t call you out of line, but I don’t think they’re stupid either.
How do you feel about people who publicly and happily voted for Texas Prop 2? Can you ignore the fact that these people don’t think you deserve the same rights they have, and still be friends? Not only do they think you don’t deserve rights, they actively, personally, made the effort to keep you from getting them.
I’m not in that boat, being a straight white male, but I think I’d have a hard time getting over it.
Now, I can appreciate that someone might vote for Romney despite his gay marriage stance, rather than because of it. OTOH, the recent anti-gay efforts really upset me, I feel like we’re in a modern version of the bad old days of racism, and Romney is happy to continue something that I think is completely wrong.
I have many friends who have WILDLY different opinions. Those who can’t handle it don’t get to be my friends. If somebody sent me a messag such as the above, whether it was voting for Romney, birth control, or the Med Fly, I’d de-friend them (even if I agreed with them).
There are some political things about which reasonable people can disagree, and there are some political things where it would be dehumanizing to believe that reasonable people can disagree about them.
I’m not going to remain in a room with someone who wants to tell me all about how, as a gay person, my equality with them is up for debate. Why should I keep them as a Facebook friend?
Choosing not to remain friends with someone just because they don’t share your political beliefs is moronic. Certainly, there are other characteristics of friends that can override the negatives (this is coming from a liberal with conservative friends). You aren’t married to your friends. It seems to me that if you only friend people with similar political beliefs then there’s a serious issue that needs to be addressed.
Hell, half or more the conservative gurgle that comes out on my facebook feed is from conservative GAY friends who are voting for Romney and hate Obama. And I’m talking extremely gay people here, not in the closet or anything.
There are plenty of reasons to hate Mitt Romney, his stance on gay rights is a big one and is an obvious reason for why I wouldn’t ever vote for him no matter how much I agreed with any of his other policies. But de-friending someone because of their political beliefs is stupid. You are basically saying that you don’t care at all to hear other opinions, to debate others, or possibly win them over.
Remember, anytime someone says, “that person is a bad influence” it’s important to remember that you might be a good influence on them. Cutting people off because of their political opinions only serves to reinforce your own echo chamber as well as theirs.
Some people just want to be validated in their beliefs above all else. I mainly see this in people who have a negative outlook on life. It’s almost like an alcoholic who befriends people because they enable alcoholic behavior or a non-alcoholic only befriending people who don’t drink for fear of relapse (most relapse on their own by the way). Positive people don’t let topics like politics come in the way of friendship. I guess it depends on what kind of person someone wants to be. Do they want to be a negative or a positive person? I can tell you that if you let validation affect friendship, you’re going to isolate yourself socially.
It’s the passive-agressive stance your friend is taking that would make me want to de-friend him, and I’m not even voting for Romney. When “friends” pull melodramatic bullshit like that, then he wasn’t a friend in my book in the first place.
I agree with the OP. If you are the type of person who ASKS people to de-friend you for any reason, you should probably have been de-friended along time ago. You are just asking to rile people up and posturing for what ever agenda you are pushing. I disagree with plenty of my friends about who to vote for, women’s rights, gay rights, etc, but I stay friends with most of them because I believe that having strong opinions makes friendships more fruitful, not less so. If you insulate yourself from other differing opinions you are less likely to influence someone you think is wrong. How is that helping anyone?
You cut off someone who disagrees with you vehemently, you are basically just saying that you don’t care if they believe that and don’t want to put forth any effort into getting them to change.
But, if you’re the kind of person who actually WANTS to de-friend someone because of political opinions, then you are beyond my help, seriously.
Facebook politics is weird. In real life, yes, of course I would cheerfully “de-friend” that girl who I haven’t seen since 10th grade algebra if she said she was voting for Romney. If, of course, we hadn’t already been mutually de-friended by mutual apathy over 20 years. I’d like to do the same on Facebook, but it’s not that simple… you have to take an active role in the un-friending and leave a paper trail. It’s a little closer to flipping someone off, which I don’t want to do. I hate Facebook but I really don’t know a better way to find pics of my ex-girlfriends and gloat at their fatness.
I’ve got hundreds of game friends on FB. There are some craaaaazy people out there. I figure though, what’s the point of the internet if I just use it to insulate myself from everything I don’t like? Better to know what people actually think, I figure.
Wow. That just sounds nuts to me. What kind of insular world so you live in that you don’t have friends who will vote for Romney? Hell, I’m an Obama supporter, and I’m not even sure how my wife is voting.
My best friend, in real life, is a christian conservative. I am an agnostic liberal. We debate and debate all the time, and my conversation with him is much more enlightening with him than with fellow liberals where I normally just go, “yeah thats right!”
Something like this, probably. I think that request (“If you plan to vote for R please de-friend me”) is really just a deliberate public declaration of contempt toward Romney voters.