Talking about Relationships

The cover story in yesterday's AM New York was titled "Oh Boy!" and reports on a Florida Baptist minister, George Alan Rekers, an outspoken anti-gay activist who wants to "cure" homosexuals. Well, it seems, Rekers "solicited a 20-year old male hooker online from the website....then reportedly took his escort for a 10-day romp through Europe last month." Rekers now joins a fairly long and well-known list including former Florida Representative Mark Foley, Idaho's Senator Larry Craig, Virginia Representative Ed Schrock, evangelical preacher Ted Haggard, and former Florida Representative Bob Allen. All of these men were outspoken anti-gay activists who built their reputations on opposition to gay rights. Makes you wonder about hypocrites like these. Makes you wonder about people who hate and who are willing to go to great lengths to spread their particular brand of bigotry. Makes you wonder about their relational lives in general and what kind of hatred they're passing on to their children. One good thing to emerge from this is that people like this will have little further influence and our world will be a little better place.

Intercultural communication

Take a look at "What Not to Say" by Sam Sommers in Psychology Today (June 2010)--it doesn't seem to be online yet; it's a different take on intercultural communication from that which appears in most of our textbooks. Along with the article is a sidebar by blogger Kristin J. Anderson who offers some suggestions on intercultural conversations. One of them I don't see in our textbooks: "let go of the fear of appearing racist."