How to QUICKLY break up with a relative or friend.....

I have a 17-yr. old young friend  (I could almost use the word protogé) who sort of looks up to me as her mentor in many ways.  The question she asked me the other day was "are there any topics I shouldn't talk about with others?"

That's when I told her: "Never, EVER discuss politics or religion.....unless you want to quickly break up with a relative or friend".  I saw two brothers discussing the "Occupy Wall Street" campaign.  The younger brother felt it was a great campaign to call attention to corporate greed.  The older brother said "These are Socialists!  Communists!"  - the conversation became heated and the rest of us watched as they shouted louder and louder at one another.  It was very close to coming to blows between them.  Finally, the older brother's wife broke in (we half expected her to be hit by a blow)....saying "This is MY SUPPOSED-to-be HAPPY BIRTHDAY party, and you will STOP this conversation RIGHT NOW!".  They stopped, but the tension did not.  The younger brother and his wife left early, muttering something about "damn Republican!" under his breath.  I wonder if they're still speaking.....doubt it!

Then I witnessed another very sad FIGHT over religion between two sisters.  Again, it was a family gathering - actually to celebrate the birthday of a son of the younger of the two sisters.  The younger sister is a devout Roman Catholic; her older sister is a DEDICATED atheist.  Somehow, the subject of religion came up.  The older sister fired her shots about priests who molest children.  The younger sister naturally defended her faith and said this wasn't the norm nor was it the time and place to discuss this.  Then they became embroiled in an "after death" discussion.  The older sister said there is no afterlife, period....THIS life is all there is.  The younger sister was hurt and said "There is a heaven and a hell".  We watched these two sisters (it was like a ping-pong match, only SADDER!) back and forth - they shot egregious statements at one another.  The rest of us (there were about 25 in the room) weren't really sure what to do to occupy ourselves.  We definitely didn't want to take sides, but we also could not avoid HEARING this fight.  Once again, it didn't come to blows but it got out of hand to the point where the older sister threw a plate (luckily, tin!) of canapés across the room to make her point.  Mmmmm, well I guess I really didn't want those cucumber dill rounds anyway.  Most embarrassed of all was the younger sister's son, whose birthday it was.  He stormed upstairs to his room.  Can't say we blame him.  We didn't stay much longer (what the heck, the canapés were on the floor and there SURE as heck wasn't going to be a "cake cutting ceremony"!).  We don't know if the two sisters ever made up or not......we doubt it!

BUT - I tell my protogé about these two stories so that she understands that there are two subjects guaranteed to break up a family or friendship.  Talk about the weather, about interests, about family, about future plans, but never EVER talk about politics or religion.