I should start by say­ing, I total­ly get it.  When com­fort­able white lib­er­als say that Trump vot­ers are not wel­come in their homes, or issue self-right­eous screeds about how their out­rage isn’t about pol­i­tics—and per­haps espe­cial­ly when dudes who remind me of me in a lot of impor­tant ways demand the right to insist oth­er peo­ple unfriend them—it’s a strug­gle for me not to nod my head and click “Like” and jump on the head-in-the-sand, I‑don’t-want-to-deal-with-you band­wag­on.  It would be eas­i­er for me to make it through the day smil­ing and feel­ing good about myself if I could just remove all of the “Red Feed” folks from my friends list and see noth­ing but news I agree with.

Except that’s (at least par­tial­ly) what got us into this mess to begin with.

I’ve writ­ten before about my recog­ni­tion, dur­ing my com­ing-out process, that as a white, US-native, able-bod­ied, main­line-Chris­t­ian-turned-Uni­tar­i­an-Uni­ver­sal­ist, upper-mid­dle-class cis male, the “gay card” is real­ly the only strike against me in the Priv­i­lege lot­tery.  I am—like most of the peo­ple I encounter in my small-town cen­tral-Penn­syl­va­nia dai­ly routine—not accus­tomed to dis­com­fort.  If I’m hun­gry, I eat.  If I’m cold, I turn up the ther­mo­stat.  If I’m lone­ly, I con­nect to the WiFi and see who’s online.  And if I see an opin­ion I dis­agree with… I shoot it down.  (Not always gen­tly, I’m not proud to say.)

But in the back of my mind, I keep think­ing about the note I received from an evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian friend short­ly after I came out pub­licly at a con­cert in col­lege (which is anoth­er sto­ry for anoth­er time).  “David,” she said, “I’ve always thought of gay peo­ple as dan­ger­ous per­verts, as some­thing to be afraid of and to fight against.  But now, know­ing you’re gay… I know you, and that’s not who you are.  If you’re gay, then what I was taught was wrong.  And I’d like to apol­o­gize, if you’ll let me buy you a cof­fee.”

So here’s where I am now: I don’t believe “unfriend­ing” is the solu­tion.  I don’t believe shel­ter­ing our­selves from opin­ions we dis­agree with serves the com­mon good.  I don’t believe my com­fort is more impor­tant than the pos­i­tive change I can achieve from par­tic­i­pat­ing in healthy dia­logue.  And, most impor­tant­ly, I don’t even pre­tend to believe that the answers I have are all the “right” ones.  I find it as reward­ing to real­ize I’ve allowed hon­est engage­ment with oth­er views to change my think­ing, as I do when it works the oth­er way around—when I emerge from a con­ver­sa­tion feel­ing like I’ve plant­ed a new seed in some­one else’s mind.

I stepped out of one kind of clos­et more than 20 years ago.  I remem­ber how cozy it was in there, nev­er hav­ing to explain myself or apol­o­gize for offend­ing peo­ple or won­der whether folks were judg­ing me for touch­ing my hus­band’s shoul­der in pub­lic.  I appre­ci­ate every day that Mark and I share a nice intro­vert­ed home in a lot out­side of town, that serves as a retreat from soci­ety, a place of safe­ty and reju­ve­na­tion.  And yes, some­times I joke about stay­ing here and order­ing deliv­ery for the next four years, as a kind of “vaca­tion from real­i­ty.”

But there’s work to be done.  Con­ver­sa­tions to have.  Hearts to con­nect with.  Minds to change.  And for those of us who have the abil­i­ty to do these things, a clos­et is no place to hang out.