Hey, neighbor, me too!
> You'll forgive me for believing that my neighbors strongly believe otherwise.
Oh, I know exactly what you mean, but how come what they think trumps (see what I did there, haha) what I think - why does their wacky opinion count for more than mine? Or even better, doesn't the organization's official stance count for something? I mean, the church also told people to get vaccinated, but the fact that some number of them didn't doesn't lead us to conclude that the church is anti-vaccine, does it?
When a church sings at a president's inauguration, there's a signal that's being given, regardless of statements that the church might be making to the contratry. When you are celebrating, you pull your allies to celebrate with you. Politicians don't take pictures with babies because the babies are super into policy. They take pictures with babies because a picture of your baby with the politician is a social bond. When your church's musical ambassadors sing for and are on the photographic record with a politician, that's a social bond.
I actually agree with a lot of your point, but I'm uncomfortable with the extent to which you're suggesting our actions have to be governed by what others think, especially when we go on record as to saying why we are doing something. I might be hypersensitive to it now, but one of the things in our political environment that really gets under my skin is the mentality of "you say you think X, but I [somehow] know you really think Y, and Y is bad, and I'm gonna judge you the same as if you had said you think Y". So, apologies as I've probably misinterpreted what you were saying. IMO it's good to be sensitive to perception, but only to a point. If there are naysayers who will pick at whatever you do, and won't believe what you tell them anyway, letting them overly influence what you end up doing seems like a bad idea.
