I recently wrote a very polite objection to Honeymaid after
seeing a television ad on their new “Wholesome” campaign in which they celebrated same-sex couples as archetypes of wholesome living. My intention was to
simply write a note to the company respectfully letting them know why I wouldn’t
be purchasing their product moving forward. Their corporate website routed me
to the facebook page to submit my comment, so I did:
“I've been eating Honey Maid graham crackers every day (breakfast
of champions, lol!) for years. However, I've switched to the store brand
because of this campaign. It seems you're not at all worried about offending
Christians, who still constitute the majority of the country. You have every
right to propagate your beliefs, no complaint there whatsoever. However, I also
have the right not to partake. So after years of yummy Honey Maid breakfasts I
must say goodbye to the brand.”
As a person who has always believed that good people can
differ on issues of the day, I was shocked by the slew of profanity, vicious rhetoric
and name-calling my simple little note was met with. After all, the worst thing I
said was that I was offended as a Christian. I shrugged it off and didn’t
bother responding since clearly these are not people who value diversity, or
are capable of tolerance toward people whose views differ from their own. The level
of sheer irony would be amusing if it weren’t so sad.
I thought nothing more about it until yesterday, when I received
a note from Facebook saying they had “removed the post below because it doesn’t
follow the Facebook Community Standards.” No complaint about the
F-bomb-riddled, malicious responses – but my own comparatively mild post had
violated some “standard” or other. I’m including a
link to said standards
so you can make up your own minds, but I was mighty hard pressed to see how my rather
innocuous comment had breached any of them even in the slightest.
In fact Facebook goes so far as to emphasize,
“Because of the diversity of our global
community, please keep in mind that something that may be disagreeable or
disturbing to you may not violate our Community Standards.” So apparently
my comment was so egregious as to blow right past merely “disagreeable or disturbing”
and move right into “harmful” or “dangerous”.
There is a link on the standards page to a letter signed by
both Monika Bickert, the head of Global Product Policy and Justin Osofsky, the
Vice President of Global Operations, both of whom have been invited to read
this blog. I’ll keep you posted on any response I may get.
In the meantime, to my progressive friends:
- If you are a person who fights for the rights of
minorities, gays and the poverty-stricken, and you believe that whether someone
is blue, green, transgender or handicapped they have the right to live free in
America without fear of retribution or persecution, I genuinely applaud you. I hope you know that most Christians agree with you. Just know that if the respect and freedom you
advocate for is not extended to everyone – including
and especially those who disagree with you – what you’re actually
advocating for is tyranny.
- Please don’t let anyone trap you into a false
dichotomy. It’s a very common but effective logical fallacy that goes like this:
There are two and only two possibilities, only one of which can be true. In the context of this discussion it goes
something like this – there are only two possibilities. Either:
a. Someone agrees with the progressive doctrine (“green”
lifestyle, gay marriage, abortions for all and so on). These people are to be considered virtuous, loving,
compassionate, enlightened, caring, open-minded and generally “good” human
beings.
b. Someone disagrees with the progressive doctrine.
These people are to be considered evil, hateful, bigoted, racist, sexist,
fill-in-the-blanksist people who are less than human and certainly not
deserving of kindness or respect.
Is there no room for someone like me to believe that every human being - yes, even one whose lifestyle I may not endorse - is a precious child of God, and is to be treated with respect and dignity and kindness? Isn’t that in fact the very definition of “tolerance”? Or, is it that “tolerance” isn’t enough and that if I don’t openly endorse, celebrate and whole-heartedly embrace the acceptable progressive doctrine I am summarily loaded onto the “category B" train (words chosen intentionally)?
How can a person treat conservatives with open contempt and public ridicule, while claiming he advocates for every person's right to be treated with dignity? His very behavior undermines his credibility! Or, are conservatives somehow less than human, and thus exempt from the progressive versions of compassion and tolerance? What is the meaning of tolerance if it's only extended to people you agree with?
Why it’s so easy to lure people
into a false dichotomy, I don’t know. Maybe it’s easier to just group people
into categories and label everyone who differs with you as “bad” because it
makes you feel safe and accepted. Maybe that’s what drove the Nazi’s in the ‘40s,
and the people who hung blacks by trees in the 60’s. Maybe it’s what drives
the progressive elite today. All I know is, wherever that kind of thinking has prevailed
society has become less kind, less tolerant, and a whole lot less free.
To my conservative friends:
Make no mistake. “Diversity” and “Tolerance” are reserved for a very select
group of people and it’s abundantly clear that Conservatives and Christians are
not among them. So we all have a choice to make. We can either “sit down and shut
up”, or continue to stand up, speak up and be subject to persecution and ridicule
for holding a certain set of beliefs – even when those very beliefs command us
to treat others with respect and dignity. I choose the latter, and I hope you'll join me.