Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Re: conservatives (was Encouraging MultiGen)

[Greg Dunn (MyLists]

That sounds like a good approach to me. I mean, if you tell them all
that stuff and they still want to live there, maybe they're not quite as
different from those of you already living there as they first seemed.

I loved the line about carpooling... 8-)

Greg Dunn
 


-----Original Message-----
From: cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org
[mailto:cohousing-l-admin [at] cohousing.org] On Behalf Of Lynn Nadeau
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 3:13 PM
To: cohousing L
Subject: [C-L]_Re: conservatives (was Encouraging MultiGen)



Reading about other groups' past situations with conservatives (for lack

of a better descriptor) reminds me of how I handled it in two different 
situations. In each case, my emphasis was not on whether or not the 
potential joiner was "desirable" or not, but making sure THEY would feel

comfortable. After all, if you are a bunch of hippy liberal granola 
mamas, someone way different would potentially feel much more threatened

than the larger group would. 

In one case, I knew that family members of the prospective members were 
right-wing fundamentalists, and didn't know where they themselves fit on

that spectrum.  They actually were around quite a lot, and made it known

they were thinking of moving here permanently. What I said was something

like this: "I don't know what your religion or politics are, but we 
welcome diversity and you can believe anything you want, of course. I do

want you to know who you are joining, and that we include (I forget the 
exact numbers then) 2 Quakers, 5 Unitarians, 2 Buddhists, 6 Jews, and a 
number of people who would identify as atheist, pagan, or Wiccan; our 
members include people who are divorced, living together unmarried, 
single mothers, and 7 homosexuals, some in couples, some single. You'd 
need to be able to comfortably coexist with all that." The response 
surprised me, " Oh, my daughter is gay..." But at least I'd avoided them

moving here then freaking out. 

In another case, we extended our usual recruitment hospitality to a 
couple, and the husband was a nuclear submarine captain, who was
thinking 
he might get stationed at Bangor Sub Base, in the next county, where the

Trident fleet is kept. I mentioned to him that he would need to be 
comfortable with after-dinner announcements of local peace activism, and

even RoseWind members who might periodically engage in civil
disobedience 
at Bangor. I jokingly said, "Maybe now and then we could carpool..." He 
ended up stationed elsewhere so they were no longer looking in this
area. 
But again, my focus was on his comfort, and that felt ok to me. I really

wouldn't mind more-conservative people living here, as long as they 
didn't proselytize or act upset that the liberals were so liberal. 

In many respects, what I try to do in my marketing role is give people 
enough information that they can meaningfully self select, and not later

have any huge surprises, whether political, social, or even just about 
how much work it really is.  


Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org http://www.ptguide.com
http://www.ptforpeace.info (very active peace movement here- see our 
photo)

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