Comment by ambulancechaser | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ambulancechaser | Hacker News Reader

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ambulancechaser

> Through many talks with devoted and diverse people there — people who chose to invite me into their dorms and conversations rather than ostracize me — I began to realize the damage I had done.

> That kind of persuasion happens in person-to-person interactions and it requires a lot of honest listening on both sides. For me, the conversations that led me to change my views started because I couldn’t understand why anyone would fear me. I thought I was only doing what was right and defending those I loved.

These two quotes kinda resonate with me. I'm no longer on a college campus and can only take an impression from afar. But it seems like these two scenarios are more and more infrequent. It seems like now you must show that you have not been "tainted" by listening to someone with "reprehensible" opinions. This article states that people who didn't convulse at the mere thought of him, but sat down and talked to him are the reason why he drifted from his ideology. Now, it seems like you could be ostracized yourself for even visiting this person in their dorm room.

I think you're drawing too much from the author's experiences when it comes to changing people's minds. Engagement rarely, if ever, changes the opinions of people because people debate to hear how they're right and not how they're wrong. For years I've engaged my parents on the issue of my desire to transition (being that I'm transgender). And every time they respond with a cold shoulder or some mild rebuke. This has been the norm for sixteen years and they're not changing. So why should I engage them or anyone else like them?

Forgive me if I'm getting too personal, but are you looking for tolerance or acceptance?

Because "live and let live" is an old and honored American tradition, and taking this out of the domain of the family, not being able to refuse to bake a gay wedding cake is the antithesis of that tradition.

They're not directly comparable, because it's your parents, then again, you hardly have to go so far as to desire to transition to be given the cold shoulder or anything but a mild rebuke over something else that differs that's fundamental in your nature and that's different between you and your parents (in my case it pertained to simply going to college).

"Because "live and let live" is an old and honored American tradition, and taking this out of the domain of the family, not being able to refuse to bake a gay wedding cake is the antithesis of that tradition."

The problem with that argument is that it means I can force Christians seeking employment to urinate on the Bible as a condition of that employment. So, the law as it stands prevents me from forcing Christians to denigrate themselves for a quick buck. Similarly, I can't deny Christians access to my services as a programmer. So why should a Christian baker be able to deny their services in kind?

Do you see the problem here? Basically, it would lead to an economic apartheid where the evangelical majority in the South can deny services to those who aren't them. These aren't just bakers either but medical doctors, EMTs, and police officers. Can you imagine a gay person dying from kidney cancer being told by the oncologist they're not going to treat them for their cancer until they repent? This has happened in the United States during the AIDS scare of the 80s. Hospices, hospitals, and individual medical staff refused to treat AIDS patients. Is that the kind of "tolerance" you want? Or do you want the law to say "keep your faith at home." Because even when I was an evangelical years ago I knew that the law was for my benefit too. If you think that a complex society like ours can live that way I'm just done with this conversation.

"They're not directly comparable, because it's your parents, then again, you hardly have to go so far as to desire to transition to be given the cold shoulder or anything but a mild rebuke over something else that differs that's fundamental in your nature and that's different between you and your parents (in my case it pertained to simply going to college)."

In college, you're not obliged to a conversation with your fellow students. If they're there to learn and it's not part of the credit requirement to debate you on a topic in the course then how about you take a hint and leave that person alone. I know that's mean of me but being that I went to college and grad school I found there was little time for chitchat and whenever there was any it wasn't about my gender identity. So, I guess I see college as something I didn't worry about challenging anything because my interest was getting a degree to get a good job and not to play faux activist. Because honestly, there's little virtue in trying to convince "the other side" of anything. I'd rather they just get their collective heads out of their butts and realize my humanity isn't conditional. If it's too hard for them to see me as human then well they're gonna have a bad time talking to me (as I might likely mock their dear Lord and Savior).

This has happened in the United States during the AIDS scare of the 80s. Hospices, hospitals, and individual medical staff refused to treat AIDS patients.

Were you, you know, actually around for this "scare"?

It wasn't a "scare", it was a debilitating and universally fatal infectious blood-born disease, which we'd gotten out of the habit of admitting was such a thing, And more than a few healthcare workers contracted it from their patients.

I'm going to call you on this claim of facts of refusal to treat AIDS patients, which I know happened at small scales, dentists included, for not everyone is Florence Nightingale brave, while also pointing out that prior to the development of effective treatments this didn't, you know, actually effect eventual outcomes. And was it widespread enough to be a major thing, enough that people were denied treatment altogether, as opposed to having to get it from someone else?

Going further, are we eventually going to regret according civil rights to a disease? Suppose Ebola had been much more transmissible than it turned out to be (helps when it kills so fast, it'll get really bad if/when it adapts and kills less, and less quickly).

First, you don't have to be alive during something to know about it's history. We have these things called books and there's plenty of people still alive from the early 1980s. In fact, if you want to know I was born in 1980 and I remember that the scare was still present even in my home state of Kansas where I was instructed by my own parents to use toilet covers in public restrooms because I might get AIDS. Yes, son, it was that bad where people were doing idiotic things.

Also, I have gay friends who were teenagers and adults from that time who told me the stories about how doctors refusing to even give antibiotics to infected friends. So, I don't want to hear your bullshit about it being a "blood-born disease" on such matters.

Furthermore, you're dishonest for trying to conflate the disease with the patient. AIDS doesn't mean a doctor shrinks away from treating their patients, nor does Ebola for that matter. If you became a doctor in a general hospital score some nurse tail then you're in the wrong business. Try consulting or taking patients on a per-invite basis (such clinics exist for a reason). On top of all that, you've just proven yourself to be the bigot I expect because you conflate the disease with the patient rather than address my principle points regarding why we have such laws in place for PUBLIC businesses.

So, if you want to address that point I'm game but if you can't admit that freedom of association is not unlimited then we can't discuss anything. So, do you think it's okay for me to force Christians to urinate on the Bible or a figure of Jesus as a requirement in a job interview. Or to pledge their souls to Satan (since I know some Satanists who are business owners believe it or not)? Let's see how far you wanna go down the rabbit hole of apartheid.

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