At this point in my life I find that I’m very into politics and religion. I care a lot about what I believe in. I’m too passionate, in fact. At times I think that I become blind to the other side and believe there is really only one way. But I’m trying to get over these biases I have because I realize now that no matter what I believe in politically or religiously this shouldn’t get in the way of friendships that could form. That said, it took me some conversations to figure this out.
When you’re young you don’t think twice about what other people may believe in. I always assumed that yes, maybe people believed in God, but as I grew older I started to assume everyone had figured out what I had figured out about it. It wasn’t until about my senior year of high school that I started to see these differences. In fact, there was one defining moment of realizing how differently our views were. There was a party at my house maybe a year ago, and we were playing a game. You write the name of a famous person and tape it to someone else’s forehead and they have to figure out who they are (if you’ve ever seen Inglourious Basters, it was the game that was played in the bar scene). My friend, Alex, was given “Jesus”. His first question was “Am I real?” To which there was mixed answers. After a moment of arguing with each other we settled on “It depends on who you talk to.”
In my college prep class, freshman year of high school, we had a debate for gay marriage. This is an issue I stand by to the point where I can’t even listen to the other side’s thoughts on it. To me, gay marriage is not harmful. In fact, I think it can boost our economy. Marriage isn’t sacred between men and women anymore, especially with a divorce rate of 50%. I think people should love whoever they love and that others should remember that our country is built on the idea of separation of church and state. I have friends who think differently. To them, the bible clearly states that homosexuality is wrong. And while I’ve heard this view point over and over again, it’s the one conversation that I can’t understand the view point of.
This brings me to Wheatly’s essay. She says that we enter conversation with a “willingness to be disturbed” but I find that when I have this particular conversation with people, I don’t have a willingness to be disturbed. I don’t even want to have the conversation at all because to me, it leads no where. I think with this issue in particular it is hard for either side to really understand the points of view from the other. On the one hand, the whole point of even talking about it is to perhaps see some insight from another walk of life but at the same time if you start to change your mind about it and be persuaded by them you’re compromising your faith or beliefs.
After reading this essay I would like to say that the way I have the conversation about gay marriage with those who do not believe in it would change, but I don’t know that I’m telling the truth. In the end, that is probably something I’ll need to work on for myself so maybe the other party can try to understand me as well. Conversation is tricky and while we should go into it with the willingness to be disturbed and have our views challenged, it is easier said than done.
I had a similar coming of age experience when I realized that not everything is in black and white; my truths are not the definite truths written in stone but they are the truths for me because I had chosen them regardless if I knew that I was making these choices. What we believe to be right and wrong has to do with many aspects of our background which shade the color of our perspectives and is seen more vibrantly when we talk to others that are different; all colors being the same level of vibrancy with evident reason. My position on gay marriage is the same as yours yet with strong bases of political and religious stances others may view differently from ours. People will hardly ever adopt the views from the opposing side. These are topics in which one person cannot completely convince another who has already a structured belief system that fits to their own best interest; meaning a system that serves them well. I understand the difficulty with trying to view other perspectives that differ from the beliefs that are instilled and taking form from our personal experiences. Yet the phrase “willingness to be disturbed” is not necessarily implying that the viewer must accept perspectives in place of their own but to merely broaden their spectrum of comprehending perspectives; meaning that the individual is open to listening to what others believe while still maintaining their own beliefs central to themselves. It is a willingness to understand despite how far away or outrageous it may be from your own system. By believing that a person must accept the views of others when listening or trying to understand is when people may feel as though they do not want to engage in the conversation to begin with for there is not a distinction between adopting the beliefs of others through discussion and seeing what works for those in the conversation apart from what works for the self; this seems to be unwillingness to be disturbed.
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