Drama, Facebook Style

I have a Facebook page. I've had it since 2008 and aside from one too-close-for-comfort email from an asshat from my past (who subsequently got blocked right after he contacted me, because I didn't want to talk to him ever again) it's been pretty trouble-free.

Until today.

It's no secret that I'm a liberal democrat--one of the more moderate ones, but I'm still a liberal (and it says so on my Facebook page.) Anyway, I posted an article from the WSJ about Sarah Palin's recent resignation which sparked a back and forth discussion between me and a friend of mine. That's not the problem. My aunt chimed in, which is.

My aunt is one of my mom's six sisters, and one of many that she has no contact with. Consequently, I've also had virtually no contact with her until a couple of months ago, when she found me on Facebook. I know enough about my aunt to know she's a conservative, fundamentalist Christian. But I figure since my leanings (and beliefs) are on the profile page, and she found me, she also knew what she was getting.

So she cuts into the conversation with a rather snide comment about how Sarah Palin must be too conservative or too intelligent for us. (Yeah. She went there.)

Leaving aside that this kind of thing irritates the crap out of me, because I wouldn't dare go to her page and make a political or religious statement, I didn't quite know how to react. So I thought about it, drank a coke, thought about it some more and said, in so many words, that I respected my aunt's beliefs and her right to have them but I was asking for the same consideration. I told her my beliefs regarding Ms. Palin (which had nothing at all to do with her religious beliefs and everything to do with her qualifications.) I figured that would end it and I went on with my day.

I have now received two more emails from my aunt---one in which she tells me that she is asking for respect for her beliefs (um, yeah, you went to whose page to make that comment?) and another one in which she told me she shares many of Ms. Palin's beliefs and has now realized that Facebook is not the place for political topics. And she said she was sorry.

The thing is, I do talk about politics on my Facebook page--more than I do here (but less than I did around the election LOL.) It's something my friends and I enjoy debating---and for sure, we don't always agree but that's the way of it. I just don't want to be in the position of censoring myself on my own page.

Le sigh.