A friend is someone who votes for you

My earlier essay, An open letter to my conservative friends, got a few people asking, “Will I still have any friends if I repost THAT?”

I want to be really, really clear. In An open letter…, I was asking my friends who frequently quote the most extreme of the conservative pundits (Beck, Limbaugh, and Palin) and the recent Republican contenders (Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, Perry, Paul, and Romney) whether they do so because they think those people are funny or because they agree with their positions. And if it’s the latter, do they agree with just one or two of their positions or their entire philosophy? And I said I was asking because those same friends’ behavior belies the sorts of negative characteristics those oft-quoted pundits lead with. All I wanted to know was who my friends authentically are and what they authentically believe.

I think that’s a fair question. After all, minorities will always be in the minority unless some of the majority support them. It’s a numbers game. So any of us whose civil rights are currently seconded to those of the majority need to know who our friends are. The idea that we are one person in public and another in private is not new or shocking. But if who we are in private is Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll, if our private thoughts are in stark and conflicting opposition to what we say and do, that bears reflection.

Facebook has us counting our friends like fourth graders. “How many friends have YOU got?” we say to each other, and feel a little smug when our count is higher than a cool kid. But hundreds of Facebook contacts notwithstanding (;c), I personally count among them seven intimate friends – the kind that sub for family — my “inner circle,” if you will. And guess what? We don’t agree about everything! Three voted for Bush (the first time), and one still calls herself a Republican. Two will tell me I was nuts for writing what I did, citing privacy, five will applaud me, and three of those five will repost. (Three aren’t even on Facebook. Can you believe it?!?)

Here’s what I say to the two who cite privacy:

A couple of years ago, I wrote an email to my personal real estate agent contact list suggesting that Karl Rove wasn’t the best choice for the Texas Association of REALTORS keynote speaker at its annual convention. My thinking was that our collective professional reputation would be better served if we chose someone whose publicly perceived ethics were above reproach. My email went viral, was critiqued (and applauded) on blogs and op-ed pages nationwide, and created a firestorm for me, especially with professional colleagues who felt, like my two private friends, that as a businessperson I should just keep my views to myself. And with that I was for a short time effectively silenced.

Then along came Hurricane Ike. I began writing again after the storm, and my opt-in list grew and grew, and the writing fed my soul and helped others, and I pledged to myself that I would never, never be silenced again. Writing is what I do, what I have always done, since long before real estate and Galveston and everything else I’m identified with today. The only practical difference between me and my heroes, essayists Molly Ivins and Maureen Dowd, is that I don’t have a column. Instead, I have a blog. I personally don’t want conservative writers to stop exploring their ideas publicly, no matter how far flung from my comprehension, because I read everybody. I want to know and learn and grow and write better. The targets of my current query are not the writers and the thinkers that keep us questioning, but the reliably rigid pot-stirrers who prey with misinformation on public fears.

I want to know why my friends keep quoting the worst of the fear-mongers!

Not to belabor the point, but I am in a minority. Less than thirty years ago, there were some rumblings from the likes of these same ultra-conservative pundits suggesting that homosexuals should be rounded up and exiled. If you weren’t in the middle of it, then this probably sounds extreme to you, but it happened all over the country, including New York City where I lived at the time, and it made this well-heeled, educated, Southern WASP sorority girl who happened to be gay sit up and take notice. For the first time, I was aware that I could be targeted — anybody can be — if enough good people refuse to speak the truth aloud, if our “friends” do nothing. Ask any 20th Century Jew, European immigrant, African American, Japanese internee, or woman — all of whom still walk among us. It has been that short a time.

If you’re not in a seconded social group today, good for you. You (or someone you really do love) might be tomorrow — because you might get old when it’s not popular to be old or you might get divorced when it’s not popular to be divorced or you might be thin when it’s not popular to be thin or you might be from Texas when it’s not popular to be from Texas or your kid might be gay — or you might just understand in your heart of hearts that but for the grace of God you were born without social encumbrances, that nobody will discriminate against you… today.

I was called “liberal” yesterday. Guilty. I’m blonde, too, by the way. But the most striking feedback were the few emails from my opt-in list saying, “Regrettably, I must opt out…” Regrettably. There’s a message in there. I know what it means to me. Knowing what you know about An open letter…, what does it mean to you?