I just watched this video clip, and it offered me a different perspective on Dylan Mulvaney. When I first saw Mulvaney’s Bud Light ad, a couple weeks ago, I thought: Here’s somebody doing a bad imitation of Pee-wee Herman! But in this video clip, Mulvaney comes across as genuine, authentic, as a real human being speaking sincerely about an important issue:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CuFQBdjRFFV
By the way, I changed a sentence from the previous paragraph. It originally began, “When I saw his Bud Light ad….,” because I think of Mulvaney as a “he,” regardless of how Mulvaney would like me to think of him/her, and regardless of what operations or hormonal treatment Mulvaney has gone through. People aren’t necessarily who they say they are, nor am I obligated to refer to people the way they would like to be referred to.
For example, the head of the Roman Catholic Church expects people to refer to him as “His Holiness, the Pope,” or to directly address him as “Your Holiness.” But I’m a Jew. To me, the Pope ain’t holy, and nothing he can say or do will make him holy. If I were Catholic, maybe I would refer to him as “His Holiness, the Pope,” but what is appropriate for a Catholic to say may be inappropriate for a Jew to say.
I have no desire to disrespect the Pope either. There’s got to be a way for people to talk to and about other people without the titles that imply the existence of a reverential relationship that they neither experience nor accept.
I remember, years ago, when Condolezza Rice was America’s Secretary of State, she made an official statement in which she referred to “The Holy Qur’an.” I thought then, and I still think, that was a mistake. Candi Rice is the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. She was raised Christian, not Muslim. And as far as I know, she never renounced Christianity or converted to Islam. So why would she refer to a book held sacred by Muslims, but NOT held sacred by Christians, Jews, or anyone other than Muslims, as “Holy”? Perhaps she thought that was the diplomatic thing to do.
There ought to be a way for people of different beliefs and orientations – religious beliefs and sexual orientations, for example – to speak to and about one another without pretending that they share others’ views or hold others’ views reverentially when they do not.