With a major holiday this weekend, many of us will attend family or social gatherings where the guests will include people — or to be more specific, relatives — with whom we might not agree on everything (or anything).
Typically, confrontations over politics can be avoided with a little polite sidestepping or changing of the subject.
But this is the Fourth. We’ll be celebrating the birth of our nation, which saw multiple historic shifts in the past week alone, shifts that seem to profoundly scare some. Beverages will be had.
Obviously, you will want to avoid a shouting match as best you can. But your aunt, as a charter member of the Bill O’Reilly fan club, may simply not be able to back down on her assertions that Obamacare is eroding the nation, racism is a myth, and gay marriage is an affront to her religious freedom, even though she never goes to church.
Here is our guide to holding your own in a margarita-fueled battle royale.
On the Affordable Care Act
The U.S. Supreme Court has now upheld the law twice — and with the most recent decision, it seems, permanently. But seeing as how “Obamacare” remains a favorite Republican buzzword, good for raising hackles and campaign funds, you will likely hear many of the following tried-and-untrue assertions:
• Obamacare is government-run health care. This one was debunked as far back as 2010, when PolitiFact called it The Lie of the Year, but you may still hear it around the barbecue grill. Short answer: It’s not. ACA is not about giving the government control over hospitals or doctors; it’s about giving individuals more control over their care, by limiting insurers’ power to deny them coverage and by expanding their access to insurance. And here’s another point to make: the ACA makes it easier for people to go to the doctor routinely rather than rushing to the ER, which costs the government — and all of us — more money.
• It’s a failure. How? As of the beginning of June according to DHS figures, more than 10 million people had purchased insurance coverage through ACA exchanges — and if the anti-Obamacare forces had been successful in the most recent Supreme Court case, 1.28 million Floridians would have lost their subsidies. Now that would have been a failure.
• It’s a communist plot! Oh, right. Freeing up people to strike out on their own and launch a business, rather than feeling locked into a job because they’re afraid to lose their insurance — that’s real Commie pinko stuff. Actually, sounds more like the American dream.
• It’s the End of Days! I remember “debating” with someone at a party just days before ACA’s passage who said, astonishingly and with a straight face, that the law was a sign of the Apocalypse. Chances are, if your backyard-BBQ debate opponent resorts to that scenario and you’re already four Jai Alais deep, we recommend swiftly walking away. That’s not something you can fix.
On gay marriage
This probably applies more to family parties than social gatherings, since contention over this seems to occur largely along generational lines.
• Have you read Leviticus? No, but have you read [insert Bible passage here]? Choose from multiple examples forbidding divorce, demanding that adulterers be stoned to death, and the like.
• It’s about states’ rights! You know what else was about states’ rights? Slavery.
• It will destroy the institution of Marriage As We Know It. Marriage As We Know It has changed drastically over the centuries. You know Beauty and the Beast? That originated as a French folk tale to instruct young girls to go willingly into an arranged marriage with the yucky, ornery buffalo man because someday he would become handsome and well-mannered.
• It’s a threat to religious liberty. Nope, it’s not. Your clergy-of-choice can’t be forced to marry same-sex couples, which is OK, since most same-sex couples wouldn’t want anything to do with a church that doesn’t want them.
On Confederate flags
This is probably the debate I’d recommend avoiding, because people get really heated over it in these parts.
• It’s a symbol of cultural heritage. It wasn’t even flown regularly until the mid-20th century, when it was widely appropriated by white supremacists to harken back to a time when the South thrived on the backs of black slaves.
• It represents the lives of soldiers lost. The flag of the Confederate states was totally different at the start of the American Civil War. The “Stars and Bars,” which had three thick stripes and a Betsy Ross-style circle of seven stars in the upper left corner, was redesigned because it was tough to differentiate it from the U.S. flag on the battlefield. The flag we know today was the one flown by Robert E. Lee’s army (there were multiple flag designs throughout the region), but even General Lee tried to distance himself from the flag after the war.
• I have a right to display it, and you’re stepping on my rights of free speech if you forbid me to do so. You absolutely have the right to fly the flag on your private property, or display Confederate flag-emblazoned mud flaps on your pickup truck. But it’s also my right to assume you’re a dick if you do. And when it comes to public buildings like courthouses or state capitols, displaying a symbol of a failed secession doesn’t seem like the most patriotic thing to do.
(Footnote: Calling someone a dick for liking the Confederate flag might not be such a good idea, given that his or her belief system tends to include being heavily armed at all times.)
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2015.