Unwrapping the Onion: Comments

I have always published pretty much every comment. Seriously, the only ones I have ever deleted were the “Hi, you should come check out the lawn mowers we have for sale” type of comment, the ones that are completely unrelated to the material in the post. The other exception was commenters who were name-calling and/or swearing at other commenters. I don’t always respond to comments, particularly when it’s a controversial issue, but I have always published them.

I have a very diverse group of readers, and I expected that I would get diverse responses to this series. This is a topic that doesn’t get discussed that much in every day conversation, and most people don’t even know that much about it. I have many religious friends and readers through this blog, and I understand that many of those religions are not affirming of LGBTQ people. Even then, my assumption was that people would be able to express their concerns with charity and mutual respect, something I believe every person is capable of regardless of their religion or non-religion.

This has not proven to be the case. There is a loud anonymous(s) commenter(s) who has been very aggressive and abrasive, and I want to apologize to anyone who has been hurt or triggered by this person’s vitriolic commentary.

I want this to be a safe place for open and honest discussion, concerns and disagreement are always allowed, and have always been allowed. Honestly, no post I have written in the past has received such a massive amount of nasty comments before, my commenters have almost always been able to keep it together and respect each other’s differences.

I am going to urge all my commenters, particularly the more abusive ones (you know who you are) to keep it classy or I will start to exercise my right as blog administrator and delete any comments that make sweeping generalizations, personal attacks, or hate speech. I understand that people have strong feelings, but I think that everyone can choose their wording in a way that can be productive rather than incendiary.

To the rest of my readers, thank you for reading and for keeping your comments clean and respectful. To any new readers who have arrived because of this series, welcome. Many of you have identified yourselves as LGBTQ and I haven’t had too many Queer readers to my knowledge before this series, so it is nice to “meet” all of you. And I hope that my comment policy up until now hasn’t been too exhausting for you.