Fugitivus Discussion Forum

Great post, as usual!

I find myself in a similar situation in regards to Harriet and Mickey/others using the word Bitch. However, for me it is using the God. I am an atheist. I was born and raised Roman Catholic and my family and most friends are catholic. They hold these beliefs very close and I have always respected them. I have never made a comment or argued with someone against their religion in a "If you believe in a higher being you are stupid" kind of way, like I have witnessed some atheists do. That is sooo disrespectful, and, like Harriet, I have been there. I get why they are religious. It is just no longer a choice I am making for myself.

Here's my confusion/issue: My boyfriend's best friends are married Mormons. I think these people are fantastic human beings. However, whenever I use the word God (as in, pretty much only in, "Oh my god!"), I am met with "Please don't use the Lord's name in vein." I don't say anything after that. The couple usually looks at eachother and smile in camaraderie. They know I am an atheist and have also been very respectful about that except with this one issue (so far). Am I wrong to use this word in their presence? Is there a difference between asking someone to not use a vulgar curse word and not 'breaking a commandment' in that that person does not hold it in any higher regard? I feel like the history of the word 'bitch' is specifically wrong, where as someone 'breaking a commandment' is arguably inconsequential. Is that blindly arrogant/priviledged/insensative of me?

I look forward to the dicussion! Thanks so much!

//Just adding a link to the original post so that it's easier to find months from now. --Damiane

This is an issue in my house. I tell my boys not to use the term "Oh my God!" because he is not their God. It offends my mother, among other people. I am guilty of it myself, and also tend to say "Jesus Christ" when I am startled, and say "Good Lord!" a lot too. It is something I am trying to work on. It's not a commandment issue to me, it is just that it is not my religion (since I don't have a religion) and I think it's unfair for me to use the terminology, especially in a negative way that people of that group find offensive.

Also, welcome to the board! Please take the time to read the code of conduct, and feel free to post an introduction post.

I think not saying it around them is a good idea. It shows respect for them. I know I would likely be annoyed, too, being forced to do or not do something because of someone else's religion, but this clearly falls in the same category as 'not saying bitch around me', to me, so therefore it's a little different than the other religion pushing I've had to deal with, like people making me take off my Baphomet shirt, or making me say grace.

I'm an agnostic atheist, and have a tendency to combine god/jesus with fuck/shit/damn a lot. I don't see anything wrong with doing it among my atheist friends or just in general, but if I'm around someone who I know gets majorly offended by it... well, really, how much effort does it take for me to not say a word? Not that much. So I don't, and I am just fine reconciling someone else's religious wishes with my anti-religion stance in that regard.

That's just me, though, and I don't think you're being insensitive/arrogant/whatever if you don't do that. I think you need to evaluate how much you care about/respect these people who are asking religious things of you and compare it with how much harm you feel not being able to use god/jesus as regular ol' words is doing to you. In all likelihood, you'll probably find it's worth not saying anything just around them to keep the peace, but it's up to you.

Good post -- I especially loved the bit about applying appropriate solutions to appropriate problems, which is something I think is easy to struggle with (I know I do often).

I have a question about how "not taking sides" is just lending tacit support to the aggrieved party. My parents have just signed the papers on a messy divorce. For context, my dad left my mom, having been unhappy in the marriage since they had kids. He left for another woman. Throughout this divorce, I tried to stay as neutral as I could -- I wanted to maintain a relationship with both my dad and my mom without their hatred for each other getting in the way. Unfortunately my mother in particular seemed to take this as an offense and would continuously try to make me side with her, by divulging aspects of their relationship that I in no way needed to know, and by slandering my dad at any opportunity she could find. She would then justify her behavior by saying divorce is hard and I could never possibly understand her rage. She would also go on about wanting to kill my dad and his girlfriend, about how her life would now always be miserable, and how he had ruined the family... and, in the same breath as asking me not to spend time with my dad when I visited home one weekend, my mom would tell me how he was "forcing her out of the family".

So my question is... is it unreasonable of me to try not to take sides in that situation? Is sternly telling my mom that I won't take sides just telling her that I won't support her in her loss? I understand that she hurts horribly, but I also understand why my dad left -- and my mom won't respect my boundaries anyway even if I tell her not to try to make me take her side in this. I don't think that what my dad did in the past to cope with his unhappy marriage was right (he nearly cheated several times, but never did so successfully), but again, I understand why it happened. I don't want to be lending tacit support to his past actions and to his hurting my mom when all I want to do is maintain an at least somewhat healthy relationship with both my parents. And though I honestly think my mom is acting a little bit crazy, I don't want to take my dad's side either -- any time he has said anything malicious about her has also made me extremely uncomfortable.

Anyway yes. Basically I don't know if I am wrong to not take sides here, and I don't really know how I *can* take sides when it seems that yes, my dad did something wrong, and now my mom is utterly psycho because of it. :\

esuriospiritus, I think that it's easier to think it's OK if you are around people who are not offended, but in a way, that's sort of like saying it's OK to use ableist words as long as there's no one apparently disabled around you. I know Christians aren't a downtrodden minority, so it's not exactly the same thing. But, at least in my case, I don't want to appropriate anyone's religion or culture if it's not mine, even if it is one full of privilege.

Zee, welcome! I would recommend that you check out the code of conduct, and if you like, please leave an introduction. Every new poster is told to check out the CoC, but one thing in particular in your post makes it especially relevant: calling your mom "psycho" and "crazy" actually goes against the "no disablism" rule. I can see how if your mom is discussing killing your father and his girlfriend, it may make you question whether she is just upset by the divorce or really entering the realm of a mental disorder, but the words "crazy" and "psycho" are often thrown about to describe any distasteful behavior, and we don't want people with mental illness to think they aren't safe here.

I am not sure if you are new to the concept of a safe space. We want there to be freedom to have touchy and controversial discussions here, but we also want to have a few ground rules that don't exclude intelligent conversation, just keep people from, often unintentionally, insulting other people or making them feel unwelcome. We had a discussion about ableist slurs recently if you want to check it out, and FWD has a post about the word crazy, if you want to delve into it.

As for your post, I agree, first of all, that that solutions part of the post was really great. I was just talking to a friends about it today, but in a different context. And, I also agree that being "neutral" is not always the best thing to be. It is hard when a member of your own family is putting you in a really difficult place, and it makes it hard not to "take sides" if they are, in effect, saying you have to take sides (e.g. saying you can't see your dad). It's a tough situation with some solutions that may not be appealing (e.g. telling her to stop putting you in that position).

Zee, I think you could say something that was mentioned in Harriet's post, something like, "I understand that dad has hurt you terribly, but I'm not willing to forsake him as a human being for it. How can I support you?"

Zee, I've had the same sort of problem with my Mum since my parents' separation (in 2003, yikes!), but in the other direction - she's been adamant that I should be maintaining a relationship with my Dad, when (for the sake of my own mental health) I'm just not up for that. My Mum's pretty good with respecting boundaries, especially mine - her inability to accept my decision basically stems from the strength of her conviction that you do whatever you can to maintain family ties.

It took me explaining to her that I felt totally disenfranchised by her insistence that an ongoing relationship with Dad was the 'right thing to do' for her to realise that her convictions were getting in the way of me making healthy decisions in my own right as an adult, and that my status as an individual with the right to make these decisions trumped her definition of me as her child.

If you're comfortable with letting your mother know that she's infringing on your freedom to make decisions for yourself, then personally, I'd start with that and try to work up to the fact that specifically, she's getting in the way of you maintaining healthy relationships with both of your parents.

I totally understand where you're coming from, but I do think the fact that Christians in no way resemble a downtrodden minority makes a big difference. Also, there's a difference between saying "Oh my God!" or "God damnit!" and throwing around derogatory terms like "Bible-thumpers" in atheist company, which I think is the actual equivalent to your example of saying ableist words only around apparently non-disabled people.

I think there's an ethical grey area when it comes to an atheist saying "God damn" or whatever around atheist company. On the one hand, it's people insulting an entity they don't even believe in but that other people do, which is obviously potentially problematic. On the other hand, unlike a slur it's not used to put any human being down, silence them, or shame them for their beliefs.

I don't pretend to know everything about ethics, though, and there's a distinct possibility that I'm making an arse out of myself by voicing my opinion that "using the Lord's name in vain" doesn't affect Christians who can't hear it because it's not a slur and they are typically quite the opposite of downtrodden where I live. It's their religious rule, not mine, and since it's not a part of my religion I don't see much of a reason to follow it unless it is to respect the feelings of someone offended by my language.

This is probably a bad analogy, not least of all because I'm vegetarian, but it's like the not eating pork thing with Jewish people. If I eat pork and no Jewish person can see me, are they going to know or will it affect them? Probably not. If I eat pork in front of them, will they be offended? Maybe. Does that mean they have a right to enforce their religious rule on me when I don't believe in their religion? Probably not, imo, but that doesn't mean I might not do it just to keep the peace.

The title of this post really made me smile because that's how I've been feeling in the past year, relative to friends who don't share my feminism. One of them went as far as to accuse me of hurting her feelings for not validating her evo psych explanations of differences between men and women, then accusing me of being all messed up and bitter as an explanation for my feminist views. This was on Facebook. I gently explained my contempt for evo psych wasn't a personal about her but a general comment about the pseudo-science involved, then I defriended her. Shortly after, a mutual friend of ours gave a typically sexist privileged response to a link I posted about how women do better as writers financially when they pretend to be men (he said it probably wasn't her apparent gender but must have been a different "style" she adopted that people liked better — which, of course, is the way men defend the exercise of their privilege every time, as a way to invalidate any perfectly logical inferences). I defriended him. Then I defriended everyone connected to the both of them. I just got tired of hanging around people who seemed to be living a completely different reality than mine. It's like explaining air-breathing to fish. I'm not saying I did "the right thing", whatever that is, but I acted from my feelings, my boundaries and my needs. I can't say I'm loads happier overall but I get upset less often.