Not the concepts, but the words.
On a recent NPR broadcast about corporal punishment in high-schools, a young woman said that she preferred corporal punishment over detention because she believed in 'traditional values'.
What gives her belief the moral superiority to be declared traditional?
Whose tradition? Not mine certainly. We did not hit in our home when I was growing up, nor was that true in my parents' childhood homes. Corporal punishment is not traditional for everyone. It angers me that someone is justifying violence by calling it traditional and therefore implying that it should be my tradition as well. I am not 'wrong' because I choose to be non-violent.
She could call it Southern tradition (as she was from the South). She could call it her family's tradition. She does not get to call it simply 'traditional'.
I take the same issue with declaring something 'wholesome' because it is Christian. Another NPR story just today discussed an effort by Focus on the Family to re-boot the Christian-themed teen-magazine Brio. In the interview the magazine was described as 'wholesome'. I have a problem with this. Saying that this magazine is 'wholesome' implies that Conservative Christian views are wholesome...while tacitly implying that other views are not. I find tolerance and open-mindedness wholesome. I find as wholesome liberal attitudes towards race, ethnicity, and sexuality.
They could stick with Christian-themed. They could say 'conservative'. They do not get to call it simply 'wholesome'.
(This is the part where I should make noise about 'not all Conservative Christians are homophobic, sexually-repressed bigots', but I will not waste your time with the obvious.)
In short…
I am done being labeled radical because I do not conform to Conservative Christian doctrine. I am done being labeled somehow less-than-fully-American because I do not live in a rural area. I am done being labeled 'wrong' because I do not agree with reactionary views.
To my fellow citizens who are Southern, rural, Conservative Christian, etc.: I am just as much a traditional, wholesome American as you. You do not get to declare your views the norm from which others are evaluated.
So back off.
