Just because I disagree with your choice, doesn’t mean that I think you are a bad person. For me, judging is making an assessment of someone’s values or morals or motivations and deciding that they are invalid or inferior.

So, for example, if you tell me that you spanked your child because you were frustrated and at your wit’s end and didn’t know what else to do, I may think that you made the wrong choice in that moment. But I don’t think you are bad person or a bad parent. However, if you tell me that children need to be spanked in order to be shown who is boss, then I will judge you, your values and your motivations. It isn’t necessarily entirely your fault that you have that attitude. It may have been passed on to you from your parents or from society as a whole, but I still think it is wrong and I will judge that attitude and the actions that result from it. I will try to advocate for a different way of seeing things or a different way of doing things, but if you are not open to that and are hurt by my judgement, I will have to live with that and so will you.

I judge racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and I judge negative attitudes about the wholeness and value of children and their self-worth. If I call you on it and you see the error of your ways and make amends, then all is good. But if I call you on it and you dig in your heels and insist that your prejudice is justified, I will judge you.

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.
Now, once you’ve selected the “Straight White Male” difficulty setting, you still have to create a character, and how many points you get to start — and how they are apportioned — will make a difference. Initially the computer will tell you how many points you get and how they are divided up. If you start with 25 points, and your dump stat is wealth, well, then you may be kind of screwed. If you start with 250 points and your dump stat is charisma, well, then you’re probably fine. Be aware the computer makes it difficult to start with more than 30 points; people on higher difficulty settings generally start with even fewer than that.
As the game progresses, your goal is to gain points, apportion them wisely, and level up. If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.
Likewise, it’s certainly possible someone playing at a higher difficulty setting is progressing more quickly than you are, because they had more points initially given to them by the computer and/or their highest stats are wealth, intelligence and constitution and/or simply because they play the game better than you do. It doesn’t change the fact you are still playing on the lowest difficulty setting.
You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on. The player who plays on the “Gay Minority Female” setting? Hardcore.

I have definitely considered marriage, although I feel it would take away from our relationship, and how we both view it. Marriage is currently an unnecessary device which misrepresents what OUR relationship stands for. The purpose of our marriage would not be to procreate, nor would it be for tax reasons, nor because I think our children should live in a married household. It would not be to spend “eternity” together. It would not be in case of divorce someone would receive alimony nor would it be to make me or my girlfriend’s family proud. When marriage means love, I will marry her, she will know why… It will be because of LOVE, trust, compassion and respect, and that is why we will last forever with, or without a piece of paper proclaiming us “married”. Until then, I’m going to propose a pagan union that encompasses the connections we want our relationship to stand for – love, trust, compassion and respect. Marriage is restricted; love should not be.

As a TN adoptee who had to sign that I agreed to severe penalties if I violated the “no-contact” given from the CI because, for some reason, being adopted makes me untrustworthy and apt to “cause harm,” I really didn’t find The Avengers joke funny. I am tired of going into legislator offices, asking for adoptee equality, and them responding to me as though we’re all seeking to “bang down” our mother’s doors and cause them harm. It’s not fair that a room full of non-adopted people (adopted people laughing at our own community’s stereotypes and inside jokes is different) laughed when I bet not a fraction of a percentage of them are willing to join the Adoptee Rights Movement to stop the stereotypes where they hurt us most.