What the word "hate" actually means:

[TranquilMind]

Or "I don't have anything against you personally, but, I find heterosexuality disgusting and wrong".  That would be interpreted as a hateful thing to say by... anyone.

 

It is actually just a stupid thing to say and it would make me laugh.

 

Kind of like saying, "Well, I don't have anything personally against you, but all that breathing you are doing is just disgusting and wrong."

 

Yeah, but none of us would be here without it.  Now that is truly an example of something that is an integral part of being human. 

[poppy]

It is actually just a stupid thing to say and it would make me laugh.

 

Kind of like saying, "Well, I don't have anything personally against you, but all that breathing you are doing is just disgusting and wrong."

 

Yeah, but none of us would be here without it. Now that is truly an example of something that is an integral part of being human.

I know about 8 gay couples that have kids.

[poppy]

Cannot count how often I've heard some version of "You seem nice enough, but having so many kids is just stupid and wrong."

 

Or some version of, "OMG, how could you attend a church full of pedophiles. And you take your kids?!" There is actually a tv 2 hour program on tv every week that promotes that the Catholic Church, the pope specificly, is the anti-Christ. Hard to get much more hateful than being called followers of the anti-Christ IMO, but there it is proclaimed on network tv.

 

And yet my feelings won't change anyone else's opinion and telling them they are hateful people isn't likely to encourage them to discuss it with me either.

I grew up Catholic, my dad is very involved the parish politics and is music director, my uncle is a deacon . Big catholic family , 17 aunts and uncles who all had a bunch of kids. I have never in my life heard anyone say anything like that to me. I don't understand why you get hate mail????

[TranquilMind]

I know about 8 gay couples that have kids.

 

Not by their own devices, you don't. 

 

Not sure why you are diverting into this announcement on a thread about what hate actually means, but ok. 

Edited June 21, 2016 by TranquilMind

[TranquilMind]

What exactly are you trying to say?

 

Well, read the post before mine which rather irrelevantly I thought, stated "I know 8 gay couples who have kids".

Ok.

 

Well they didn't produce kids together.    That's just biological fact. 

But it isn't the topic of this thread. 

 

[poppy]

Not by their own devices, you don't. 

 

Not sure why you are diverting into this announcement on a thread about what hate actually means, but ok. 

 

I'm not really sure what the topic of this thread is. It started rather cryptically - was probably a spin off of something?   I gather it is that some people want to be able to express dislike for gay folks without being  criticized.

 

As to the gay couples, they got their kids a variety of ways. Adoption, IVF, former relationships. Just like lots and lots of hetero couples.

[Murphy101]

I swear to God you deliberately misread every word I write on these boards and twist them into unrecognizable caricatures of my actual words. In pretty much every context. Car accidents, emotional intelligence, smoking are the most recent ones I can think of.

 

Enough already. Stop.

 

Who said anything about stopping smoking bans? Or that we can't discourage our kids from smoking?

 

Smoking bans are in place. Kids are aware that it's bad. There's still no reason to be an asshole toward a human person. Ever. Nasty comments. Rude faces. Etc. It's all unnecessary. Gay, smoker, large family. Whatever. Just no.

 

My point is that 25 years ago, it was unheard of to be deliberately rude to a smoker, even if you hated smoke. Now, because smokers are villains to a very large swath of people there is a segment who knows that "everyone agrees with me" and uses that implied backing to be jerks. Yes, it does fall on the same continuum of "everyone knows gay is gross" that leads to "othering" of anyone who belongs to that group. The implied agreement bolsters thoughtlessness and deliberate mean words or actions against those who are deemed "wrong".

 

There's a difference between teaching your kids that smoking is bad and that smokERs are bad. My kids are taught about addiction (not just nicotine) and compassion for those caught in the addiction. They will walk by a smoker and say something like "that poor guy, I feel sorry for him".

 

As a parent I'll take that over the comments my loved ones have heard, any day.

Oh go stop yourself.

 

Where did I ever say someone should be deliberately rude to anyone? I didn't.

 

YOU Said you would give them an ashtray and sit outside with them while they smoke.

 

I would never do that and nor would I encourage others to do so or changing social policies to make it easier for smokers to smoke in social/public situations. Not participating in their addiction or being complicit in it or otherwise supporting it is NOT the same as being deliberately rude to them.

 

Anyone who visits my home knows I don't allow smoking on my property or around my kids. I am not going to be mean or rude to them. But I will tell them they can't smoke here. If they construe that as me hating them - that's just too bad and sad.

 

We have family that smokes, watched my mother die of cancer. My children know there is a difference between saying smoking is bad and smokers are all bad people. Not once has it ever been a problem for them to figure out, so claims that you can't figure it out seems disingenuous at best. So stop that already.

[fraidycat]

Oh go stop yourself.

 

Where did I ever say someone should be deliberately rude to anyone? I didn't.

 

YOU Said you would give them an ashtray and sit outside with them while they smoke.

 

I would never do that and nor would I encourage others to do so or changing social policies to make it easier for smokers to smoke in social/public situations. Not participating in their addiction or being complicit in it or otherwise supporting it is NOT the same as being deliberately rude to them.

 

Anyone who visits my home knows I don't allow smoking on my property or around my kids. I am not going to be mean or rude to them. But I will tell them they can't smoke here. If they construe that as me hating them - that's just too bad and sad.

 

We have family that smokes, watched my mother die of cancer. My children know there is a difference between saying smoking is bad and smokers are all bad people. Not once has it ever been a problem for them to figure out, so claims that you can't figure it out seems disingenuous at best. So stop that already.

Yes, what *I* do, at MY home. You've got a problem with me treating others with kindness? That's not my problem.

 

I said nothing about changing social policies or making it easier for smokers. Nowhere. Not once.

 

And again with the word twisting - what exactly can't I figure out? Where did you get those words? Certainly NOT from me.

[Murphy101]

I grew up Catholic, my dad is very involved the parish politics and is music director, my uncle is a deacon . Big catholic family , 17 aunts and uncles who all had a bunch of kids. I have never in my life heard anyone say anything like that to me. I don't understand why you get hate mail????

Hate Email I should have said. So correcting myself on that.

 

I really don't care if your family has never heard that. Good for them.

 

When a mom of 10 goes grocery shopping or to the zoo or wherever, people notice the crowd. When someone seems too openly religious, it's noticed, which I don't even think I am, but the kids in tow is a silent statement too. People comment. I've gotten nasty emails and comments on my blog. I've had people say really crazy and or rude things. I'm not alone in having experienced this either. When I've been a part of large family groups, online or IRL, other moms share similiar experiences. Heck, the most common discussion point is how and if one should announce a pregnancy before they absolutely have to bc we just don't want to deal with the comments of family and or strangers. Catholics here are a minority. Less than 5% in my state. There's a lot of people who have weird ideas of what Catholic even means and view large families of any religion in general as a religious cultish thing.

[Murphy101]

Sorry mean people say those things to you. :( I don't know why anyone thinks they should have a say about something as personal as how many kids a person has. :cursing:

The judging other people thing is getting so tiresome.

 

I see that if you want to have an actual discussion, then pointing out how hateful they are is not going to work. Remaining calm and checking your feelings is really the only to have that discussion. However, are you really ever going to change someone's mind who has the strong of an opinion? I just don't see it. I mean, if they are willing to say that to your face or in an email, then what are they saying to other people? But what else can you do? You can't let it get to you, but you also can't just drop it.

I think it still has value to check my feelings (at least in the moment) whether I change their mind or not. Because my children are watching and listening. Because other adults are too. And because one never knows what seed will plant. At the very least, more than once I gave a response they could not counter, and maybe that made them rethink their opinion. I have had people say they never thought of it that way. I had someone say a couple weeks ago they had never in their life met someone with so many kids IRL. (Well she actually said a lot more than that and was not particuliarly friendly tho I think she thought she was. Bless her heart.ðŸ˜) Maybe actually talking to someone IRL changed her view. Or not. But I think it blew her mind that I was not dressed like a character from little house on the prairie and didn't seem very oppressed by my fertility. Lol

[TranquilMind]

 

Anyone who visits my home knows I don't allow smoking on my property or around my kids. I am not going to be mean or rude to them. But I will tell them they can't smoke here. If they construe that as me hating them - that's just too bad and sad.

 

 

 

But it would be construed as hate by those who think every disagreement is "hate" and espouse perpetual victimhood. 

 

I've known a lot of smokers. 

 

 

[poppy]

Hate Email I should have said. So correcting myself on that.

 

I really don't care if your family has never heard that. Good for them.

 

When a mom of 10 goes grocery shopping or to the zoo or wherever, people notice the crowd. When someone seems too openly religious, it's noticed, which I don't even think I am, but the kids in tow is a silent statement too. People comment. I've gotten nasty emails and comments on my blog. I've had people say really crazy and or rude things. I'm not alone in having experienced this either. When I've been a part of large family groups, online or IRL, other moms share similiar experiences. Heck, the most common discussion point is how and if one should announce a pregnancy before they absolutely have to bc we just don't want to deal with the comments of family and or strangers. Catholics here are a minority. Less than 5% in my state. There's a lot of people who have weird ideas of what Catholic even means and view large families of any religion in general as a religious cultish thing.

 

Ah. Well. If there is one thing the WTM Chat Board has taught me,  it is that people with big families hear a lot of hateful things from strangers- so, I completely believe you. I read on Tapatalk which doesn't show signatures.  (Why, Tapatalk, why???)

[JadeOrchidSong]

N/A

Edited June 22, 2016 by JadeOrchidSong

[MotherGoose]

I was also wondering what the 8 gay couples having kids comment meant and also how they got kids, adoption?

Yes, it is a biological fact that to create a child, there has to be sperm plus egg, somewhere somehow, and gay couples cannot, by definition, provide this from within themselves. Some heterosexual couples can't either, but heterosexual couples, in general, can give sperm plus egg.

[goldberry]

Your 'disagreement', when magnified by the millions of people who also 'disagree', on the grounds that homosexuals are deviant  (that is, they deviate from God's straight norms) help create an environment in which hate can flourish. That's what being on a continuum of hate means. It doesn't mean you spend all day sticking pins into pictures of gay people and frothing at the mouth at their evil.

 

I think its way more comfortable to believe that because you, personally, don't actively do harm, your beliefs don't do any harm. Not too many Australians are abusing refugees in detention camps either. No active harm! But our collective beliefs around refugees are what enable the culture of harm and dehumanization to take place. 

 

It isn't really enough to be pat oneself on the back for being passive, considering that it does no harm. Sometimes we need to be active in order to truly do no harm. 

 

There are many ways, not just this one, where something one believes can be used by other people to perpetuate harm.  It is not always the belief that is the problem, sometimes it is the people involved.  

 

Trust me, I don't pat myself on the back for anything.  Instead, I examine myself on a regular basis to make sure that as far as I can control, I am not contributing to perpetuating harm on anyone.  When I read the threads on this board, I actively listen to what people are saying, and again, examine myself in light of that.  I believe that anyone with a belief that can be used to cause harm should be doing the same, guarding their words and actions, and calling out others that are using that belief to harm.  I absolutely call out those in my presence that use these beliefs as an excuse to be derogatory, judgmental, or invasive in other's business. 

 

But yes, I do believe it is possible to hold a belief, apply it to yourself, mind your own business, and be respectful of others - without that belief = hate.  The fact than many seem unable to do that is outside of my control, and not limited to this one issue. Humans have an unfortunate history of using various methods to justify hateful behavior.  

[Scarlett]

The difference is that being gay is part of who a person is. Smoking is not.

 

Imagine if someone said to you, "I think having children is wrong. It's sinful and God hates it. Look at all these places where my holy book says that having children is an abomination. You should really think about separating from your kids and not being a mother anymore. It will be hard, but it's what God wants."

 

They might not think they hate you and your kids, but it's sure going to feel like they do.

I would not care. I would be amused or think the person was unhinged.

[TranquilMind]

Really, a lot of things we consider wrong actions come out of who a person is - I would say probably 99% of them do.  All the things I regularly do that I think are wrong come out of my nature, that's why I do them.

 

This.  Absolutely.  We are all a mix of good behaviors and bad ones.  Of resisting temptations and of running with them.  And, for the Christian, trying to rise above the desires of the flesh to just give in and indulge in lust for ...whatever.  Could be money, power, sex, worldly goods, anything. 

 

Everything we do is because it is inside us to do it, and is part of who we are, even if just for the moment (unless we are being held at gunpoint). 

Edited June 23, 2016 by TranquilMind

[TranquilMind]

I would not care. I would be amused or think the person was unhinged.

 

Me too.  Even biology tells us how this is supposed to work and that God clearly wants us to have children, as well as scripture, where man is told to be fruitful and multiply.  You can't compare two biblical concepts as alike when one is proscribed and the other is a mandate. 

 

Example makes no sense. 

Edited June 23, 2016 by TranquilMind

[Scarlett]

I belong to a religion that many people hate. In fact a few days ago a man threatened to knock my dhs teeth out. We were gob smacked but we were really not upset by it. We know people believe differently than us and they have that right.

[MercyA]

I belong to a religion that many people hate. In fact a few days ago a man threatened to knock my dhs teeth out. We were gob smacked but we were really not upset by it. We know people believe differently than us and they have that right.

 

:ohmy: So sorry, Scarlett.