My thoughts on this subject:
I see questions asked on this board on occasion, that I myself would ask, because I am interested to learn about and appreciate the uniqueness of various GLOs. Whether it's due to the way we've evolved as individual houses (or groups of GLOs), or whether it's due to the different values that various houses (or groups of GLOs) emphasize, these differences do exist.
These differences aren't necessarily obvious outside of one's own GLO (or groups of GLOs). I think we often know a lot about our own GLO's (and associated GLOs) simply because, well, we've been around long enough to *know* our greek heritage.
It *is* easy to get offended when someone asks a question and think, "you *know* better than to ask."
There's two possibilities: (1) the person does know better, and is simply not minding his/her own business. That's inexcusable. (2) the person is trying to educate him/herself, and has chosen the wrong way, simply because they don't know any better than to not ask. In this case, I think it's wrong for me as a sister to junp all over them, unless it's clear that their intentions are foul. I would rather deflect the question with a polite and firm "that's special to my sisters and me."
I've seen examples of both, on and off this board. To go back to my original point: there are questions that I've seen asked that I would ask myself, but I'm not sure what is or isn't kosher to ask. Example: there's been a question about the tradition of stepping amongst BGLOs asked on another board in the past couple days. Now I don't think I'd ever ask how each GLO's step is meaningful to them - as a GLO member myself, I can guess that that's most likely special and not for just anyone to know. But I am curious, is it culturally significant to the BGLOs, is that where it came from? *shrug* not knowing much about BGLOs, I do not know whether that's an acceptable question or not. (BTW, I'm not fishing for an answer...it's purely a rhetorical question, used as an example).
Another topic is one that I just sort of dove into blindly, my question about the "rush dilemma." I wasn't sure if I would get jumped all over for that, or not. After seeing some of the responses though (to both topics), I hesitate to ask questions, because though my intentions may be innocent, they may not be seen as such.
Similarly, there's no way anyone could know the ire I feel when certain questions are asked about my own sisterhood, because it's easy to forget that though I may know all the rules and regs of what's special to A.S.K., there's no way a non-initiate could! How is someone to know....we are young and new, and our history and purpose isn't inherently part of the greek consciousness (yet!). And even if it were...how can you expect someone to know *all* your business, as you do?
So if I'm a GLO member, and all I have a vague idea of what's off limits about other GLOs in other traditions, I can't imagine what it might be to the young innocents who have no baseline for deciding whether or not to ask a particular question. I feel absolutely no sympathy for those nosing around business they *know* isn't theirs....but I feel infinitely sorry for those who don't know any better...more often than not, they get a harsh response, which doesn't really guide them away from asking the wrong questions and asking the right ones, it just dulls the honest desire to know and learn.
[This message has been edited by equeen (edited June 28, 2000).]