Originally published at: Watch Christian dad's speech to lawmakers about his changed view on transgender daughter | Boing Boing
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It is cool that he saw the light regarding his own daughter, and has gone on to pop his head over the parapet to stand up for other sons and daughters.
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I got something in my eye…
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A good speech.
And regarding his early comments - you don’t have to “get it” to respect it.
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The problem with all “I didn’t care until it happened to me” arguments is that it didn’t happen to the Republican lawmakers listening to the argument, so they still don’t care.
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As the proud father of a trans kid, I couldn’t love this more. Thank you for sharing it!
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Same.
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It is a wonderful speech, and it makes me glad to hear it.
Unfortunately, this is Missouri we’re taking about, so his testimony will be disregarded as irrelevant.
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Powerful, incredibly powerful. It shows that, when faced with facts to the contrary, people can change, grow, and understand. All they have to do is open their eyes, and listen. Not everybody will, but even one is a step forward.
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This is excellent, and I’m very happy to see it.
Next goal- get white men to care about other people before one of them is their child. I work in a male dominated field and am constantly told by men that “now that they have a daughter they are so glad I’m here as a role model”. It ends up sounding like a creepy protection of property argument every time.
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Sure, by many, but not all. Hell, look at @TomFury13 's comment right below yours.
People need to speak up like this, the more publicly the better. It does change hearts and minds, and votes. And no small thing, it does also comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. Even in places like Missouri.
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As a progressive Missourian, I resent this smear. We’re not all terrible, despite what our legislature looks like
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That’s almost true, but sometimes you’ll hear those other lawmakers say “yeah Boulware doesn’t vote the party line on that, but he’s still a good Republican; he just has this issue because of his kid” rather than “he’s a complete RINO and we need to get him primaried”. It’s not a whole lot better than nothing, insofar as it’s explicit acceptance of the idea that consideration for people outside one’s immediate family is fundamentally impossible.
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I still think there’s a great deal of value in people like this coming forward to say “I believed what you now believe but I have since come to understand that I was terribly, tragically wrong—and this is why.”
If Dick Cheney had spoken up this forcefully for his daughter’s right to marry then we might have got marriage equality in the U.S. years earlier than we did.
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This is up there with Zach Wahls’ speech about his moms.
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when faced with facts to the contrary, people can change, grow, and understand
…about that one thing. In these cases, their epiphany only applies to that one trait or feature that directly and personally affected them.
Show me an instance where their personal epiphany wasn’t so limited. Show me a Republican whose experience raising an LGBTQ child led them to expanded respect for:
- Foreigners
- Illegal immigrants
- Muslims and atheists
- Homeless people, starving people, and the working poor
- People with disabilities
- Reformed criminals
- People struggling with addiction
- Victims of domestic violence
…i.e.: any of the other groups that the GOP frequently enjoys denigrating and excluding in favor of their preferred demographics.
Show me any Republican who realized that their malice and lack of empathy toward any one group, proven wrong by their personal experience, might also apply to their malice and lack of empathy toward any other group.
Maybe don’t bother looking too hard: you won’t find it. Because one of the most central, distinguishing features between Democrats and Republicans is: capacity for empathy.
I submit that in the example above - and similar cases, like Dick Cheney - these Republicans have not learned a central lesson about empathy. They have merely carved out an exception to their void of empathy, one that is narrowly tailored to avoid applying their hateful views to people like their loved ones.
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Yep. It’s central dogma to republicans to reject empathy.
Changing your mind is anti-conservative. And empathy might change your mind. Ergo empathy is weakness. For the same reason scientific literacy, to a republican, is also weakness.
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I call this the solipsism fallacy - how can I have made a wrong decision? After all, I am obviously objectively correct because otherwise, I must have made a mistake and that’s not possible.
It’s not just empathy (although that’s certainly a part of it), it’s the ability to grow as a human being.
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And even if they “get it” on one issue, this type of enlightenment is never transitive.
Nancy Reagan was OK with stem cell research but was still against abortion.
Dick Cheney was OK with lesbians but was still doing every other thing Dick Cheney did.
Congressman X who gets Cancer Y is still going to vote to defund research on Cancer Z.
The only solution is for each individual Republican to be touched by all possible non-traditional life situations (personally or by proxy via a member of their nuclear family).
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