Other than the unnecessary insults about “righteous” and “PC,” you’ve basically got it right here. There’s a complete lack of evidence that a lack of a father figure could result in the sort of confusion that was suggested in the other thread, exactly as there’s a complete lack of evidence a religious predilection could result in car trouble. Shodan’s response is to ignore the lack of evidence in the first case while recognizing the lack of evidence in the second case, and to say that his double standard suffices to wreck the analogy.
It doesn’t.
Edit: he could, of course, suggest that the difference I’m describing is subjective (it’s not–look at the studies). In that case, the appropriate thing to do would be to allow both cases, to say that in both cases people should be attackable for any factors they consider relevant, no matter how subjectively silly the connection they draw. Or he could say that it’d be a moderator call in both cases. Or he could say that he’d be all right with banning both cases. All of these responses would be consistent.
There are some things for which there isn’t going to be any “evidence” one way or the other, and common sense can play a role here. So can ideology (which is why I brought up “righteous” and “PC”). More below.
This is an example of what I’m referring to. I’m pretty sure there there are no studies of whether children of lesbian families are more likely to have issues with Mother’s Day, which was the entire focus of that thread and the comments to it. Tossing out “studies” with regards to that issue is the result of looking at it solely in terms of the broader ideological perspective on whether lesbian families are to be viewed positively or negatively.
IMO some subjectivity is unavoidable, especially when the issue is whether something is a legitimate opinion or an insult. All insults are opinions, and legitimacy is subjective.
Careful–I was specifically talking in that post about the confusion that Urbanredneck suggested resulted from the lack of a father, and there’s a complete lack of evidence showing that such confusion exists. Sure, such confusion, if it existed, might affect Mother’s Day, but it doesn’t exist. Other factors besides confusion might affect Mother’s Day, but my post wasn’t talking about those.
ISTM that “your truck won’t start because it is next to a church” is so much less likely to be true than “your son forgot Mother’s Day because he didn’t have a father figure to remind him” as to constitute a different kind of statement. The first isn’t even remotely possible; the second might be. If you care to call that a judgment call, I won’t quibble.
It isn’t a double standard. As mentioned, in the case of the parked truck, there is no evidence of any sort whatsoever, and a sensible person recognizes that. In the second case, several people told of their experiences where the father was the one driving recognition of Mother’s Day, and I didn’t see you produce any hard data that the children of lesbians were no more likely than anyone else to forget Mother’s Day.
But the idea that there could possibly be anything whatsoever about a lesbian household that ever, ever was bad, is a politically incorrect idea, and therefore you are not going to recognize it. So it goes. As F-P mentions, the de facto attitude of the mods appears to be that the notion of a possible drawback to an all-female house is not out of the question. That’s good, IMO.
But I don’t know whether there would be any evidence of such a thing if it did exist. And there certainly aren’t any “studies” of it (or at least no one has pointed out any).
[FTR, this is not to endorse the position that there is in fact any such “confusion”.]
ATMB is for discussing things About This Message Board. If there is an issue with the moderation of a particular thread related to the topic being discussed, or if there is an issue with the rules either as written or as enforced, please discuss it.
Issues related to the presence or absence of a father in a lesbian relationship are not issues for ATMB and are better discussed in the relevant thread in a more appropriate forum.
If this thread keeps straying outside of the bounds of ATMB I am going to have to close it. I would like to make sure that everyone with an ATMB issue has had a chance to at least speak their mind before I do that though.
I would note though that my entire point here is that these things cannot be completely separated, and that some level of judgment as to whether a potentially hurtful perspective has any validity at all is inexorably part of the decision as to how to moderate it.
Yeah, I kind of agree. Posts like urbanredneck’s have zero validity to them (I want to be clear that that’s the one I’m calling out, not others that dealt with two-mothers issues). They have zero validity in the same way that attacking a Christian for his superstitious beliefs in a thread about car maintenance has zero validity, or attacking a black person for genetic inferiority in a thread about family dynamics has zero validity.
It should be moderated under the “no personal attacks” rule, a rule which should be interpreted slightly differently according to the forum. Just as political jabs that are acceptable in great debates have no place in general questions, bigoted comments that are acceptable in great debates have no place in IMHO.
Yes, then we could change the name of the forum from “In my humble opinion” to “An opinion that’s really not mine, nor is it humble, nor is it really my opinion, because some opinions aren’t allowed in a forum for humble opinions.” I don’t know if all that would fit in the title.
This is non-substantive. Of course some opinions aren’t allowed in a forum for humble opinions. The question is whether an opinion that someone’s family is inferior because they’re gay is one of those opinions.
So we should mod/suspend/ban every person who posts an inflammatory opinion? Do we really want that? Mods are smart enough to see an insult when it’s there. Why not just leave it at that?
Evidence suggests that they and I disagree on the presence of an insult. My persuasive powers are
legendary–wait,
incredible–not quite,
strong–dammit I wish I could figure out strikethrough code,
adequate–try one more
existent, so I figured I’d try to persuade them that this sort of nonsense should be treated as a personal attack. That’s why.
Yep, definite threadshitting. UrbanRedneck should have been slapped down hard.
I don’t see it as an issue of whether homophobia needs more moderator attention (although I generally agree that’s an issue to watch out for) so much as they need to realize that threads that touch on gay themes can go off the rails quickly with just a few inappropriate comments.
Imagine someone starting an IMHO or MPSIMS thread about what people are going to do with their day off for Martin Luther King Day, but then some bozo starts making hostile posts saying people shouldn’t do anything on King day because he was Communist and a womanizer and a huckster. The bozo should be shut down not because the statements are false but because they are inappropriate in a lighthearted thread about holiday activities.
I think there’s some… confusion here. It’s one thing to argue that the lack of a dad means that there are two moms, so one mom is having to remind the kid that it’s time to get a card for the other mom, and vice-versa, and that is mildly complicated or something.
It’s quite another to go off saying something like “it’s because you lesbians are trying so hard to force an agenda on your kid, that makes the kid uncomfortable and want to not participate in mother’s day”.
And even that is on topic - it’s rather bigoted and unsupported by any information, and presented in a harsh and accusatory tone, but there is a very minor possibility the kid is uncomfortable with having two moms and that is playing a role. Or, more likely, it’s just someone has to take the effort to make the kid participate because the kid wouldn’t do it without prodding. No “lesbian agenda” discomfort, just a forgetfulness, or even an agenda of not caring about Mother’s Day.
So, for relevance to ATMB, there is a thin margin of appropriateness for questions about how a “lesbian agenda” might be making the kid uncomfortable. But overall, the comment came off as threadshitting rather than as a constructive observation.
Which is completely different from the possible role of Christianity in the function of an automobile.
It’s all about context. Which thread? What’s the topic? Some threads that would be an acceptable comment, if obnoxious. Other threads, it’s not only obnoxious, it’s off topic and a hijack and a threadshit. It’s not just the forum that matters, it’s the thread topic.
To the extent the ATMB question turns on one’s evaluation of whether the lesbian Mother’s Day thesis is reasonable or based on “common sense,” then there may not be much further the thread can go without discussing the merits of that argument.
I don’t think it is reasonable or common sense. What is that thesis based on? Experience with lesbian couples? Doubtful. The ones I know with kids tend to be more on the ball with this kind of thing, because they are generally more self-conscious about cultural events involving family roles. The most charitable case you can make for this argument is that a lesbian Mom would feel more uncomfortable reminding her kid of an obligation that also involves herself, out of a sense of awkwardness about reminding her kid of an obligation owed to her. Even that argument is pretty thin, since of course such a Mom could easily just prod the kid to do something only for her spouse. Not to mention that most parents of kids that young have their own living mothers, other figures in their life, and all kinds of outside social reinforcement that make Mother’s Day pretty obvious. If both members of a particular lesbian couple failed to prod their child about the holiday–and the child somehow failed to learn about it otherwise–I don’t see why we would attribute that to their sexual orientation but wouldn’t attribute a father’s failure to do so to his sexual orientation.
Now, you may or may not agree. I gather most don’t agree, and think the thesis is “common sense.” But lots of people think theories of racial intelligence are also “common sense,” or that religious people being bad at logic is “common sense.” ISTM, we have a higher standard for allowing that kind of opinion/argument in an advice thread. Rank speculation is insufficient to allow something that is so close to an insult.
I’m not persuaded that such a rule would do anything other than allow advice threads to avoid being sidetracked, given the ample availability of spaces on this board for people to express their opinions on the failings of lesbian mothers outside a particular IMHO thread.
Yes, why not? You people - we people - are not really that important in her life, and here we are, dissecting her life like it’s on a slab. I wouldn’t listen either.
She has every right to shut her ears to a bunch of message board participants. She took what she needed from that thread. Good god, if she actually listened to all of the advice and did something stupid, we’d be like “Why were you listening to message board people?”
To the extent that I understood the UR argument, what he was saying was that the kid might be uncomfortable/unhappy that he doesn’t have a father like other kids, and possibly resentful of the fact that this resulted from a deliberate decision by his parents. Since this is highlighted on Mother’s Day when his two-mother-no-father status is brought to the fore, he is reluctant to celebrate that day.
Is this true? I have no idea. Wouldn’t surprise me if it is. Wouldn’t surprise me if it isn’t.
But I don’t see any reason to treat this hypothesis as definitively untrue based on the mere absence of any proof that it’s true. And in the context of this MB, ISTM that absent the hot button aspect and from a logical standpoint it’s not unlike a lot of other opinions that people post based on what they think makes sense.