Good lord. Why do I do this?

[velvetpage]

A person in the canpolitik forum posted a comment about how they would never donate to the Salvation Army because of their anti-gay stuff. My response was basically, fine, that's your choice, but since I've never seen that for myself I'm going to go with my choice. She accused me of operating in an ethical vaccuum by donating to a discriminatory organization, told me I could call on my sky-fairies all I liked (???) and stated that religious organizations had no place in this crisis.

Okay, let me see here.

1) An ethical vaccuum exists because the organization I donate to happens to disagree with her on a point she considers fundamental. So the only people who should be represented in aid organizations are those whose beliefs exactly match, not mine, but hers. I'm starting to have issues at this point.

2) I did not insult her in any way. In fact, I was downright friendly. There was no call for her to insult me. In doing so, she did exactly what purplekat rightly accused Christians of doing all to often, ignoring my beliefs to push her own. Except that she didn't do it in love.

3) New Orleans is in the South. Many of the people who are left behind there are black. It would not surprise me at all to know that many, perhaps even a majority of them, are Christian. Of a certainty, there are some Christians trapped in that city. Well, how many of those people will spot a Salvation Army uniform and seek spiritual aid as well as physical? And who is this woman to deny them that aid? It takes all kinds to make a world, and anyone with love in their hearts and a helping hand to lend should be welcome there. There will be some who will want the spiritual succor of the chance to pray with someone in uniform. In a few months, the Salvation Army's magazine will be full of such stories from the disaster relief centres. She doesn't have the right to force her secularism on the rest of the world, any more than I have the right to force my Christianity. What she is trying to do is at least as bad as Christians trying to convert everyone they help, and frankly, I think it's worse. At least the Christians are acting out of a (slightly misplaced) sense of love and duty. She's just acting out of bitterness and political correctness.

I said much of this to her. I just can't leave well enough alone, can I? Who knows, though - she may actually realize I'm right. It's happened before.

Comments

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I should note that I'm not at all surprised that she ignored your beliefs to push her own. I probably should have clarified that EVERYONE who holds strong beliefs without really having come to them in a thoughtful, considering manner tends to behave in this way.

I have a friend who's both Christian and a Republican but who hangs out with gamers. You can guess the kinds of attacks he gets to suffer. One time, I was over at his place hanging out and working on a project for school (this was a few years ago when I was making The Dress) and we got to talking about religion. He was floored that even though I'm agnostic, raised by athiests who are both rabidly ACLU and a die-hard democrat, I was able to listen to him talk about his faith without attacking him.

I was able to do this because I'm comfortable with what I believe, and someone, even someone I respect, disagreeing with me doesn't in any way diminish me.

Another time, I was in a chat room, and a guy who was really into being flamingly gay (this is one of the first things he would tell people when he met them) logged in and immediately said 'I hate christians!' A bunch of people agreed with him. I pointed out that if I'd logged in and said 'I hate gay people!' I would have been banned from the chat room and flamed into the ground. Eventually, we talked it around and he wound up altering the statement to be 'I strongly dislike Christians who forcibly try to convert me and don't shut up when I say I'm not interested.', which I agreed with.

All of that having been said: While I appreciate that religious organizations are getting involved in the relief effort and I'm glad that they're able to offer spiritual guidance to those who want/need it, if I were to hear of ANY organization whose help was conditional on them being able to go out and preach to people who weren't interested, I would hit the roof. I've heard of some organizations doing this sort of thing in similar situations, and it smacks of either bribery or blackmail, but either way it's a very nasty practice.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

The Salvation Army's help is always unconditional. It always has been.

I wish everyone could be as secure in their belief system as you are, and as unthreatened by others. The world would be a better place.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people closely associate what they believe with who they are. And if you attack the core of who someone is, I don't care who they are or how calm and collected they are, they -will- lash out. The more effectively that you attack it, the more defensive and hostile they'll become.

I identify myself much more by my honor and behavior, the personal code by which I try to live, and if anyone were to attack that, especially sensative areas where I'm not 100% positive that I'm being everything I pretend to be, I might not lash out at them (although I might), but boy would I ever be hurt.

So I don't pretend to be any less human than anyone else :) The only difference is that I think I've managed to identify myself with something much closer to the core of my being that has less to do with what people around me think and do.