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

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

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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