Idle Doodle: Don't force gay people to serve people who hate them
My son started speech therapy recently. We've had three sessions so far with the therapist.
Some time during session one over a video call, we were chit chatting about languages since my wife also speaks Cantonese and I also speak Mandarin (poorly...what can I say, sorry, Mom and Dad, for goofing off during Chinese School). The therapist mentioned that his husband spoke Chinese as well.
After we hung up, my wife turned to me and said, "Did he say his husband?"
I actually missed it, probably while trying to manage my son while he was finding joy in trying to gouge my eyes out.
In session three, he mentioned it again, confirming it. We didn't ask or anything, he just offered the information.
My wife found it interesting. Not because of any homophobic reason, but because she presumed that there are probably a lot of people that would be uncomfortable with their children doing therapy with a gay therapist, opting to call in to request a different therapist. For that reason, she figured that if she was in his shoes, she wouldn't offer this bit of personal information.
Sadly, I think her presumption is right on. But I disagreed with her conclusion.
During the call, it was pretty clear that he was not suffering from any lack of work, citing his packed schedule. This shows that while there may be people out there that choose to disassociate with him, that this is not some crippling issue. Therefore, offering this bit of information would passively allow any patient that hates his lifestyle to make the move to cancel their appointments. This would be a win for the patient that doesn't want to work with him, but it would also be a win for the therapist that would no longer have to provide services to a patient that hates him. It's a great subtle method to weed out patients he wouldn't want to work with.
I am not saying this is what his intention was. I can't read his mind and I don't know him well enough to ask him. I'm just saying this is what the end effect is.
It is a great illustration of freedom of association ending in a peaceful and maximally beneficial resolution for all parties.
If you think homophobes should be forced to cater to gay people, then to be logically and legally consistent, you must also think that gay people should be forced to cater to homophobes. But of course you wouldn't think the latter. That would be an atrocity. There is a better way: Freedom of association.
Some time during session one over a video call, we were chit chatting about languages since my wife also speaks Cantonese and I also speak Mandarin (poorly...what can I say, sorry, Mom and Dad, for goofing off during Chinese School). The therapist mentioned that his husband spoke Chinese as well.
After we hung up, my wife turned to me and said, "Did he say his husband?"
I actually missed it, probably while trying to manage my son while he was finding joy in trying to gouge my eyes out.
In session three, he mentioned it again, confirming it. We didn't ask or anything, he just offered the information.
My wife found it interesting. Not because of any homophobic reason, but because she presumed that there are probably a lot of people that would be uncomfortable with their children doing therapy with a gay therapist, opting to call in to request a different therapist. For that reason, she figured that if she was in his shoes, she wouldn't offer this bit of personal information.
Sadly, I think her presumption is right on. But I disagreed with her conclusion.
During the call, it was pretty clear that he was not suffering from any lack of work, citing his packed schedule. This shows that while there may be people out there that choose to disassociate with him, that this is not some crippling issue. Therefore, offering this bit of information would passively allow any patient that hates his lifestyle to make the move to cancel their appointments. This would be a win for the patient that doesn't want to work with him, but it would also be a win for the therapist that would no longer have to provide services to a patient that hates him. It's a great subtle method to weed out patients he wouldn't want to work with.
I am not saying this is what his intention was. I can't read his mind and I don't know him well enough to ask him. I'm just saying this is what the end effect is.
It is a great illustration of freedom of association ending in a peaceful and maximally beneficial resolution for all parties.
If you think homophobes should be forced to cater to gay people, then to be logically and legally consistent, you must also think that gay people should be forced to cater to homophobes. But of course you wouldn't think the latter. That would be an atrocity. There is a better way: Freedom of association.
