{"id":2945,"date":"2012-05-01T11:06:50","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T15:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2945"},"modified":"2013-01-03T14:39:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T19:39:21","slug":"ok-lets-put-our-heads-between-our-knees-and-take-a-few-deep-breaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/05\/ok-lets-put-our-heads-between-our-knees-and-take-a-few-deep-breaths.html","title":{"rendered":"Ok, Let’s Put Our Heads Between Our Knees and Take a Few Deep Breaths"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Keep Calm and Look at this Bacteriophage (which will never compare you to Hitler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mark\u2019s got another post up today, profiling a gay friend he greatly admires<\/a>, and I\u2019ve got a few more things I\u2019d like to respond to, but I\u2019m going to take a little break. \u00a0Judging by the comment threads, this hasn\u2019t been a particularly helpful discussion. \u00a0I\u2019ve registered and explained my objection to the Nazi allusions, and I\u2019m going to hold off on following up until I think I\u2019ve got a better strategy for the discussion.<\/p>\n

It seems like, to have a conversation about LGBT rights with this readership, it\u2019s necessary to tightly constrain the issue we\u2019re talking about, so there aren\u2019t a lot of non-sequiturs and sprawling rants. \u00a0We\u2019ve had more success discussing only<\/em> the possible erotization of same-sex friendship<\/a> or empirical data on gay marriage that will exist in 20 or so years<\/a>. \u00a0Limiting the discussion to rhetoric didn\u2019t work because people felt it made sense to bring anything<\/em> into the conversation to explain why their hyperbolic language was necessary.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never banned anyone from commenting at Unequally Yoked, and I don\u2019t plan to start, but I did notice a problem during these discussions where a couple people were dominating the threads by making really<\/em> hyperbolic claims (even given that we started at Godwin\u2019s Law). \u00a0I really want to emphasize that it\u2019s fine to walk away from a fight<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

No one was going to believe those claims were true if no one replied to them. \u00a0I made this mistake a couple of times, and I don\u2019t want to see our often productive discussions derailed because everyone thinks it\u2019s most urgent to reply to the craziest person in the thread. \u00a0It\u2019s a lot better to respond to the sanest <\/em>person you disagree with and work your way up from there as time and blood pressure permits.<\/p>\n

So, while we\u2019re taking a breather, I think we deserve something pretty to relax with. \u00a0Here\u2019s 30,000 tons of sodium being exploded by exposure to water (via i09<\/a>).<\/p>\n