Re: Values in community, was sexuality
From: Cher Stuewe Portnoff (cher710mchsi.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:44:14 -0800 (PST)
Ditto. This is something we'd want to know before joining a community, but as guest/visitors, how/who would we ask? I guess Emily's email encourages us to just do it -- good practice for living in community, too.


----- Original Message ----- From: "Emily Pitt" <epitt [at] earthlink.net>
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Values in community, was sexuality


I'm a frequent reader but infrequent poster to this list, and I'm intrigued by this conversation. In reference to the post below, Rob and others, I'd be curious to know whether or not your communities would feel this way if we were talking about inter-religious couples, interracial couples or intergenerational couples instead of a lesbian couple. If there were residents who were closet racists or closet anti-semites, how would that be handled in your community? If there are families in your community who keep their children away from your disabled residents or your African-American residents or your elderly residents because they mistrusted members of those groups, would this also be described as people exercising a difference in values? At what point do we tolerate bias and misunderstanding in our communities in the name of a diference in values, and at what point do we overtly ask people to accept the diversity of our communities, and help them learn to do so? I'm just wondering where this line is for folks.

For me personally, living in cohousing affords me the opportunity to interact with people I might otherwise never cross paths with, and that is very important to me. That is one of the most important functions of cohousing. Of course that keeps out certain groups, particularly groups that espouse hatred or mistrust of people. I don't necessarily value opinions above people. To me, any point of view that espouses the idea that one group of people has more value than another is not a point of view that I need to accept or make room for. I certainly don't feel the need to encourage closet homophobes or closet racists to come out of the closet and express themselves, because I feel that their doing so infringes on the rights of others. And to me, that is where one person's rights end and another's rights begin.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Sandelin <floriferous [at] msn.com>
Sent: Mar 14, 2006 10:46 AM
To: 'Cohousing-L' <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: [C-L]_ Values in community, was sexuality

We have a lesbian couple at Sharingwood. The community position as a whole,
is that we support people and their lifestyle choices. However, within the
community are a couple of people who might be called "closet" homophobes.
They are careful not to say anything negative about the couple but they are
also careful to keep their kids at distance, etc.  The lesbian couple
clearly does not feel offended or bothered by this, since there is much
acceptance and friendship. But it still exists.  So having a community
statement that you are open to all lifestyles does not mean that all your
members will endorse this personally.

And this is not a bad thing, this diversity of thinking is challenging to
the liberal community bias that exists. We all want to think everyone shares
our values, each and every one. It is not usually the case, and it is kind
of shock for people sometimes when they run into someone in their community
who has a different value than we presume everyone has, or is supposed to
have. Many people when their values do not match the majority simply keep
that to themselves, eg, they go into the closet, the avoid values
discussions, etc. It is not easy being the only person who does not hold a
particular value in a group.


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