Please stop and *think*, people.

A while back I posted over on callahanians about a long time friend's SO. He's been diagnosed with cancer, too lsate to expect much from treatment, and unlikely to last a year.

Well, They're a long time couple (been together as long as Ive known them, and that's at least 20 years. They don't believe in marriage (I think they both had marriages that didn't work out well.

But as she pointed out in a recent post, (paraphrased) "as our gay friends can tell us, marriage conveys a lot of legal rights and privileges that are difficult and expensive to get any other way. So we held our noses and got married on Friday".

Obviously they were thinking of stuff like inheritance and medical decision making. Pretty clear, right?

When I saw the announcement I added a note to an email noting that I'd seen it. Her reply had an "And?"

I replied that I felt it needed to be mentioned, but that under the circumstances, congratulations were definitely not in order.

She acknowledged that. And went on to gritch about the fact that several friends *had* congratulated them.

Can you say WTF?


As the subject says, please stop and *think* about a situation before commenting on it. Just because one *normally* offers congratulations (or regrets) about an event doesn't mean that those *always* appropriate. And when the "normal" response isn't appropriate it's almost always *horribly* inappropriate.

So please, before offering a response to something you hear about someone, stop and consider the *actual* situation and the people involved. And adjust your response accordingly.

This has been a public service annoucement that will hopefully prevent you from looking like an idiot and/or hurting people.