Posted: Jan 11, 2018 1:48 pm
Tracer Tong wrote:All of which goes to prove that such videos aren’t made for free, yes. But if you’re still thinking this is all just a way of making some people money, a pursuit for which everything else is so much camouflage, you probably aren’t understanding the people you’re criticising.
I don't think I said that did I?
Your use of "just" implies you think I was emphasizing profit to the exclusion of all other factors, when I never used words to suggest that, and to clarify - that wasn't my intention either. The subclause* was drawing attention to an aggravating factor surrounding the central point, rather than itself being the central point (and excluding all others).
Tracer Tong wrote:Thommo wrote:
And whether she believes homosexuality is harmful is hardly the point, I'm not suggesting that she participates in homosexual acts any more than I would myself (rather less in fact, since I never have and never will). The point is that if people shouldn't do something because someone else believes its harmful then she shouldn't make these videos, since other people think they are harmful - which is the very same metric.
Do you think that is a fair characterisation of their argument (to the extent they have one)?
Yes, the text I quoted was a list of things that you wouldn't do and that are all obviously harmful juxtaposed with something else that she was trying to create a moral imperative for not doing.
Perhaps I am mistaken, in what other light can one see that list?
Tracer Tong wrote:Thommo wrote:
What I do note is that you won't find a lot of these churches crusading against horse riding (definitely harmful) or mountaineering (definitely harmful) or wearing mixed fibre clothing (claimed to be forbidden by the same religious text) or any of a wide variety of other issues. The reason is of course about what modern Christians within certain communities see as sinful, she's not actually trying to prevent harm at all.
Right: it’s about sin, and the harm it causes. In preventing sin, they purport to prevent harm. Of course, that harm is supposed to occur on a plane you’re unlikely to recognise, but nevertheless this is an accurate characterisation of what they believe.
Exactly, and so, if she thinks that believing something is harmful is enough to create an imperative not to do something, then by that token she shouldn't be involved in these campaigns which many believe to be harmful.
Tracer Tong wrote:Thommo wrote:
Anyway, I am not at all sanguine about letting people do actual harm (as in the case of conversion therapies connected with films like this one) because they have a religious belief that other people are harming themselves. She isn't educating or informing. She isn't justifying her belief that harm is being done, or even attempting to. Consequently she deserves, in my view, criticism and censure for the actual harm she is involved in when she promotes intolerance.
And you’re quite entitled to that view. But it’s probably a good idea to understand where they’re coming from. Heck, it may even be that in doing that, you may one day be in a position whereby you’ve an opportunity to change someone’s mind.
A radical thought, that!
I don't see that I have misunderstood anything though, pending a different interpretation of the list I was criticising.
I think there's more chance of changing people's minds by drawing attention to the actual harm conversion therapies have done and are doing and their complete lack of success in changing people's sexuality. More minds have been changed about the inhuman way prejudice led gay people to be treated for decades of the 20th century by pointing to the misery and discrimination these attitudes caused than by lending a sympathetic ears to the purveyors of religious hatefulness. The minds being changed, however, are unlikely to be those of people involved in these ministries directly as their whole lives, financial and personal wellbeing and identity become tied up in the endeavours they pursue. They are the epitome of entrenched.
*Since it's connected by "by" I'm not sure it technically is a subclause, but I did almost no grammar at school and don't really have the time or energy to look up the correct term right now. It's used in the same way as "It is wrong that Andrew Wakefield profited directly from his harmful research into MMR vaccines." is, that is to say it's the harmful research that is the central problem and the profit only makes it worse.