I admit that I don’t have the happiest family life, and that I understand Tolstoy’s famous adage all too well. Still, I’ve never had to contend with coming out as gay to a bigoted family and then have them do this:
My mother wasn’t forwarding the post to highlight the violent intolerance that is still so prevalent in our world. She was supporting Feuerstein’s message, and this wasn’t the first time I’d come across an antigay message my mother felt compelled to share with her Facebook followers — a group of people that includes family members like cousins, aunts, uncles, my step-grandmother, and my lesbian sister, among others. It was only the latest in a string of homophobic posts she had fired off in the days following the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in favor of federal marriage equality. Those posts ranged from completely false reports about ministers being arrested for refusing to marry gay couples, to videos of right-wing extremists claiming LGBT civil rights signaled the beginning of a Christian holocaust.
If nothing else, I didn’t know that people were spreading rumors about religious figures being arrested for failing to perform same-sex marriages. Anyone have any relevant thoughts or experiences here? I don’t think the writer is wrong here. Mostly it just makes me incredibly sad.
I personally don’t want to lower the bar to know what my siblings are thinking or doing, and vice versa. We’re not friends. My uncles and cousins, sure! But no first degree relatives anymore. I’d rather know them the old fashioned way. Barely and from a distance.
I’m on good terms with my family and, despite living with them, see them exactly as often as is prudent: on the weekends, since I work nights.
I wouldn’t jeopardize my decent relationship with any of them by friending them on Facebook in the first place. Familiarity breeds contempt and all. We’re very different people, and it’s best that they can’t see what I say to my circle of friends.
Nu-uh, not my parents at least, they’re barely technically literate. They’ve actually attempted to friend me. I just ignored it. My mom asked if I’d seen the request. I said “no”. She can’t re-request as long as it’s sitting unopened in my notification bar.
Also, why haven’t the police or the FBI carted Josh Feuerstein off to jail, then court yet? This last video he incites violence and directs people to acts of terrorism.
If he had brown skin, he’d already be getting waterboarded in Gitmo by now.
Because he’s either smart, or just lucky his mouth didn’t take a left turn. He threatened no one, technically. He basically said if something that will never happen happens, he’ll use his gun.
You know what is a crime though? Fraud. Feuerstein ran a gofundme to buy a $20k Red camera for his videos. He was fully funded. There is no new equipment. There has been no change in video format. It’s been months now. He’s liable for that at the very least.
I find it easier to keep up with my family on fb, not that we don’t have a good relationship but we’re not geographically close and I’m the loner in the family anyway. Having said that I do risk seeing some posts I don’t like, nothing as bad as this, usually just woo, but I’ll either ignore them or comment on their post if I think I can make a point. No we don’t always agree but I’ll usually get at least a couple of likes from somebody else in the family along the way.
Same with friends and acquaintances, I probably risk being unfriended but I’ll comment on a controversial post if I think I have something to add. If they unfriend me its fine. I probably won’t miss those posts, if they don’t, at least you get to show that not everybody agrees with them on that particular point.
When it comes time to share though, you don’t have to share everything with everybody and its probably bad manners to always share with the world anyway, its probably a good idea to let people know that they can share something with just a specific group of people or exclude those that don’t care to hear what you have to say.
Gofundme doesn’t carry any guarantees, and you’re gonna have a hard time getting anyone who gave him money to show up and swear anything out saying they were victims.
True. The religious have been conditioned be okay with handing over their money with promises of “blessings” and instead just getting nothing in return. I doubt any of his followers would expect any difference between the tithing plate and handing this guy money.
Weirdly enough, I don’t think they’re getting nothing. I found him oddly entertaining. The single long take for his diatribe really felt like it was spontaneous. The last time I tried that (for a class) it wasn’t as good, and tragically it is on Youtube. I feel obligated to leave it there for various reasons. His followers doubtless find him to be entertaining and edifying.
I’m lucky. My family is a pack of Presbyterians from the Northeast. We would never discuss any personal feelings or have emotional conversations about how we feel about anything towards each other in person, let alone on Facebook.
