Newsflash: Liberal discovers Conservatives can be human

In other news, dog bites man. [Link]

I realize now that my prejudices against conservatives were, in many ways, just as uncompromising as the prejudices I’d often projected onto them. They were just people. Not issues. Not votes. People whose daughters go to school with my daughters, whose dogs run away and come back and run away again, whose hands found my shoulders and who didn’t judge, the night I wept over a friend who had taken her own life.

Some say there was a time when Americans got along better by not talking politics or religion. But extending kindness doesn’t have to mean keeping your mouth shut. I want to be friends with Republicans, but I don’t want to be friends with Republicans if I don’t also get to talk about why I think food stamps and socialized medicine are good ideas. Sure, I like to fish, but I don’t want to sit in a boat with someone for hours if we’re forced to keep quiet on the subjects about which we care most.Recently, Brandon asked me to help him with a eulogy for his father. It was a beautiful and confounding moment, and I almost missed the beauty of it. He’d texted his request, and a snarky part of me said that you don’t ask someone to help you with your father’s eulogy via text message. Then it hit me that of course he’d texted, because how could he call without crying? I was humbled by Brandon’s request, and haunted by my sometimes too-small capacity to offer grace to others.

Last year, a friend of mine had to pretend he’d voted Republican so he wouldn’t risk losing his job. A writer friend has made me stay quiet about her secret conservativeness, lest she be ousted from her ivory tower.

This is why we need safe places to talk politics and religion. We need to be able to say what we believe without belittling one another. We need to not pretend that things used to be easier when things used to be easier only if you were white and straight and a man. We need to stop imagining that things will get better if we keep hammering away at each other, because, every time we hammer, our resolve thickens and is harder to chip away at when we finally put those hammers down.

But, mostly, we need to listen. Not every conviction is worthy of respect, but when you hear someone out, you’re forced to acknowledge a person’s thinking and, thereby, his humanity.

The first step is believing that someone has come to their views honestly and sincerely.