Standing up for my beliefs
Nov. 14th, 2010 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI've had fairly regular visits from Jehovah's Witnesses in the last few months. I know a lot of people like to play headgames with them, or respond with outright rudeness; I've tended not to go down that route. I am not completely convinced I'm making the right decision, because I really, really dislike proselytizing, and I think there's a strong argument which says that missionaries are already being rude by knocking on your door and telling you that your religion is wrong, so you're perfectly entitled to be rude back. The reason I've decided against that is because as a general rule I don't want to be rude to anyone unless it's really necessary, and also because I feel that these people are doing something that they sincerely believe to be a religious requirement, and as long as it's annoying rather than hurtful to me, I'm willing to extend them a little compassion.
The main Witness who shows up is called Rachel, sweet girl, just out of university, and terribly sincere and all that. She sometimes brings her father, who is a reasonably sharp cookie, and sometimes random teenagers who stand around trying not to look uncomfortable. I don't ask her in, but I do allow her to stand on my doorstep for a quarter of an hour or so spouting Biblical verses at me. I don't argue, I take a quasi-interfaith stance saying things like "oh, it's really interesting that you read the Bible that way, in my tradition some people believe this and others argue that". We've actually had some quite useful discussions about our communities' experiences of the Holocaust, and contrasting the JW's habit of saying (what they believe is) God's name every sentence with the Jewish tradition of avoiding pronouncing the Divine name. Anyway, not surprisingly given her religious background, she quickly steers the conversation towards the topic of the afterlife. The previous time she visited she said something about how of course everybody is going to be resurrected in the prime of life, adding with an overt sneer:
After she went away I thought a lot about how to respond to this ableism. I definitely wanted to say something, and I wanted Rachel to take it seriously and remember it, not just regard it as the typical rebuff that door-to-door missionaries are trained to ignore. I thought about giving her a long rant about how derogatory her language and attitude were, and how I'm close to several people with disabilities including immediate family, and how I did not want anything to do with a religion that denied the basic humanity of some people. And I thought about just closing the door in her face. When she next appeared, I had to make a split second decision and decided on the latter course; I didn't want to debate the issue, and I was fairly sure she wasn't going to let me get through my rousing speech without starting to argue and justify herself. So I just told her I wasn't prepared to talk to her any more after what she'd said about disabled people, and I closed the door before she could argue.
In response, she sent me a really sweet card, with a proper apology and a lot of Biblical verses her people interpret as showing that God loves everybody regardless of what their body looks like. So, as a small piece of advocacy I think that counts as a reasonable success. I don't know if and how I should follow this up; should I write her an email (she asked me to contact her by email so we can discuss things), or should I agree to revisit the subject if she shows up at my door again? In some ways any communication I might undertake is slightly deceptive because I obviously have no intention at all of converting to her religion, but if I can make sure she doesn't throw around terms like "crippled" when proselytizing to total strangers then I'll have achieved something.
Feeling energized by this, I posted a Twitter status that makes it obvious I'm Queer. These get cross-posted to my Facebook feed, which is read by lots of people I've met at various stages of my life, including my schoolfriends who were pretty heterosexist / homophobic when we were actually in eachother's lives. I have always been out on Facebook to the extent that my profile says that I'm interested in both men and women, but since it also says I'm only looking for friends, it's somewhat ambiguous in interpretation. Nothing much happened, which is about what I expected, but it's one more small teaspoon worth of visibility in the ocean of straight people running everything.
Then there is the whole fraught question of Remembrance poppies. I'm generally a bit uncomfortable with wearing a visible symbol that shows you've donated to charity, and the peer pressure to do so. I'm also largely anti-war by inclination. However, I think the poppies are part of something bigger than, say, the pink ribbons which show that you're "aware" of breast cancer. I am willing to wear a symbol that says not only that I gave a pound to the British Legion (not exactly my number one charity in any case), but that I join others in remembering those who fought for this country, and those who were killed in wars they didn't choose. I don't want to wear a white poppy, because I'm generally anti-war rather than being a committed pacifist, so doing so feels like slactivism. It's a symbol which shows that I'm too cool and too independent minded to wear a popular symbol. I don't feel strongly enough that the ideas behind the red poppy are wrong and evil that I'm willing to risk offending those who actively choose to wear them.
My compromise was that I would wear a poppy on 11th November and today, Remembrance Sunday, but not for the whole of October and November as is becoming the custom these days. On Thursday we had a 2-minute silence in the medical school, which was surprisingly moving as the noisy, crowded department foyer fell silent and the students stopped chattering and paid attention. And I wore my poppy and took part in the ceremony (rather than making sure I was somewhere else at 11 o'clock), and that felt appropriate.
The problem is that I forgot that many Jews keep this Saturday as Remembrance Day, rather than Sunday; this makes sense given that Saturday is the day when we have major public services anyway. So I didn't wear my poppy to shul on Friday evening, and the community were a bit peeved at me for showing up without one. They have the right to be; many of the community are actual veterans, not just people who wear a poppy because that's what everyone else is doing. The Singers (Orthodox) siddur we use doesn't have any liturgy for Remembrance, so I just mentioned it and allowed a moment of silent prayer. And apologized profusely for turning up without my poppy. Apparently there is some home-grown liturgy buried in the archives somewhere; I've made a mental note that I'll make sure that gets unearthed by this time next year.
The main Witness who shows up is called Rachel, sweet girl, just out of university, and terribly sincere and all that. She sometimes brings her father, who is a reasonably sharp cookie, and sometimes random teenagers who stand around trying not to look uncomfortable. I don't ask her in, but I do allow her to stand on my doorstep for a quarter of an hour or so spouting Biblical verses at me. I don't argue, I take a quasi-interfaith stance saying things like "oh, it's really interesting that you read the Bible that way, in my tradition some people believe this and others argue that". We've actually had some quite useful discussions about our communities' experiences of the Holocaust, and contrasting the JW's habit of saying (what they believe is) God's name every sentence with the Jewish tradition of avoiding pronouncing the Divine name. Anyway, not surprisingly given her religious background, she quickly steers the conversation towards the topic of the afterlife. The previous time she visited she said something about how of course everybody is going to be resurrected in the prime of life, adding with an overt sneer:
Nobody's going to be old or crippled, of course.
After she went away I thought a lot about how to respond to this ableism. I definitely wanted to say something, and I wanted Rachel to take it seriously and remember it, not just regard it as the typical rebuff that door-to-door missionaries are trained to ignore. I thought about giving her a long rant about how derogatory her language and attitude were, and how I'm close to several people with disabilities including immediate family, and how I did not want anything to do with a religion that denied the basic humanity of some people. And I thought about just closing the door in her face. When she next appeared, I had to make a split second decision and decided on the latter course; I didn't want to debate the issue, and I was fairly sure she wasn't going to let me get through my rousing speech without starting to argue and justify herself. So I just told her I wasn't prepared to talk to her any more after what she'd said about disabled people, and I closed the door before she could argue.
In response, she sent me a really sweet card, with a proper apology and a lot of Biblical verses her people interpret as showing that God loves everybody regardless of what their body looks like. So, as a small piece of advocacy I think that counts as a reasonable success. I don't know if and how I should follow this up; should I write her an email (she asked me to contact her by email so we can discuss things), or should I agree to revisit the subject if she shows up at my door again? In some ways any communication I might undertake is slightly deceptive because I obviously have no intention at all of converting to her religion, but if I can make sure she doesn't throw around terms like "crippled" when proselytizing to total strangers then I'll have achieved something.
Feeling energized by this, I posted a Twitter status that makes it obvious I'm Queer. These get cross-posted to my Facebook feed, which is read by lots of people I've met at various stages of my life, including my schoolfriends who were pretty heterosexist / homophobic when we were actually in eachother's lives. I have always been out on Facebook to the extent that my profile says that I'm interested in both men and women, but since it also says I'm only looking for friends, it's somewhat ambiguous in interpretation. Nothing much happened, which is about what I expected, but it's one more small teaspoon worth of visibility in the ocean of straight people running everything.
Then there is the whole fraught question of Remembrance poppies. I'm generally a bit uncomfortable with wearing a visible symbol that shows you've donated to charity, and the peer pressure to do so. I'm also largely anti-war by inclination. However, I think the poppies are part of something bigger than, say, the pink ribbons which show that you're "aware" of breast cancer. I am willing to wear a symbol that says not only that I gave a pound to the British Legion (not exactly my number one charity in any case), but that I join others in remembering those who fought for this country, and those who were killed in wars they didn't choose. I don't want to wear a white poppy, because I'm generally anti-war rather than being a committed pacifist, so doing so feels like slactivism. It's a symbol which shows that I'm too cool and too independent minded to wear a popular symbol. I don't feel strongly enough that the ideas behind the red poppy are wrong and evil that I'm willing to risk offending those who actively choose to wear them.
My compromise was that I would wear a poppy on 11th November and today, Remembrance Sunday, but not for the whole of October and November as is becoming the custom these days. On Thursday we had a 2-minute silence in the medical school, which was surprisingly moving as the noisy, crowded department foyer fell silent and the students stopped chattering and paid attention. And I wore my poppy and took part in the ceremony (rather than making sure I was somewhere else at 11 o'clock), and that felt appropriate.
The problem is that I forgot that many Jews keep this Saturday as Remembrance Day, rather than Sunday; this makes sense given that Saturday is the day when we have major public services anyway. So I didn't wear my poppy to shul on Friday evening, and the community were a bit peeved at me for showing up without one. They have the right to be; many of the community are actual veterans, not just people who wear a poppy because that's what everyone else is doing. The Singers (Orthodox) siddur we use doesn't have any liturgy for Remembrance, so I just mentioned it and allowed a moment of silent prayer. And apologized profusely for turning up without my poppy. Apparently there is some home-grown liturgy buried in the archives somewhere; I've made a mental note that I'll make sure that gets unearthed by this time next year.
