Your vote, my boundaries

Presented by the Sunday Edition family of podcast and digital media content

Your Vote Is Yours. My Boundaries Are Mine.

By: Anthony Corona, Founder of the Sunday Edition Family of Podcast.

A longtime friend, or perhaps more accurately what I would call a longtime super acquaintance, sent me a rather lengthy Facebook Messenger message a couple of nights ago.

This was someone I worked with back in college. We shared plenty of laughs, went to more than a few baseball games together, and spent time in many of the same circles. But if I am being honest, ours was never the kind of friendship built on deep conversations or lifelong connection. We were friends because we shared friends. Sometimes that is enough for a season.

I mention that only because context matters.

The message centered around something I shared a few weeks ago.

It was someone else's post with a few of my own thoughts attached, as many of us do on social media.

The original author explained why they were choosing to remove people from their friends list who openly identify with the MAGA movement or strongly support Donald Trump. Their post centered around protecting their own peace and protecting members of their family, including a sister who is part of the LGBTQIA plus community, has been married for more than a decade, and is raising two young children.

Their point was simple.

If your values continually tell me that the people I love are somehow less deserving of dignity, safety, or equal treatment, I do not owe you space in my life or on my timeline.

My own comments were actually much simpler.

I said that I was not planning to go through my friends list conducting some giant political purge.

But I also said something I have believed for a very long time.

If you continually bring nastiness, cruelty, insults, harassment, or ugliness onto my page or into conversations with other people on my page, eventually you will lose access to that space.

My page is not public property.

It is my living room.

If someone keeps walking into my house to scream at my guests, eventually they are going outside.

Apparently that struck a nerve.

The message I received defended freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the right to vote.

Mixed throughout were conspiracy theories, misinformation presented as fact, declarations that the political right is actually the more progressive movement, and finally the question that seemed to matter most.

Why can't you just agree to disagree and keep it moving?

I did not answer that morning.

In fact, I waited.

For two days.

Not because I did not have an answer.

Because my first instinct was to respond with links, editorials, research, receipts, and enough facts to build a small library.

But anger rarely produces understanding.

So after letting it sit, my response became much shorter.

I told him something that was true.

I have never commented on the things you post that I find morally reprehensible.

I have never privately messaged you about your political opinions.

We have barely spoken in years.

So if something I shared made you immediately believe it was about you, perhaps that says more about what is happening inside you than it does about me.

Then I told him something else.

I cannot abide many of the things you have posted over the years.

I cannot ignore the rhetoric.

I cannot ignore the things you have chosen to amplify.

And while I am not assigning your entire value as a human being to a single vote, I absolutely have formed opinions about who you are based upon that vote, the countless posts that followed it, and the values they consistently represent.

Those observations are mine.

Those boundaries are mine.

Those choices are mine.

My life matters.

My partner's life matters.

My friends' lives matter.

The lives of LGBTQIA plus people matter.

The lives of immigrants matter.

The lives of disabled people matter.

The lives of every family wondering whether tomorrow brings another right stripped away matter.

My life is just as important as yours.

My life is just as important as the President of the United States.

My life is just as important as the most devoutly religious person in this country.

And my life belongs to me.

That means I get to decide who has access to it.

Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences.

Freedom to vote has never required me to celebrate that vote.

Freedom to post does not obligate me to read it.

And freedom of association also belongs to me.

The irony is that I received several additional messages pushing back after my response.

Eventually, I simply pressed the block button.

Not because I lost the argument.

Not because I could not defend my position.

But because peace is not won by endlessly debating people who have already decided that your humanity is negotiable.

Sometimes maturity is not agreeing to disagree.

Sometimes maturity is recognizing that every relationship has a cost.

And if the price of admission is asking me to quietly accept attacks on my community, my family, my rights, or my existence...

That ticket is simply too expensive.

I wish him well.

I genuinely do.

But wishing someone well does not require giving them unlimited access to my life.

Those are two very different things.

And I have finally become comfortable knowing the difference.