First Offendment

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.

The Christian and The Straw Man

Someone engaged me in a dialogue this week that I thought was worth sharing. This person is a thoughtful, kind woman who was talking about how we as Christians are in constant battle against our own "dark urges", which range from simple every-day things like jealousy or laziness, to more insidious urges like gambling or adultery. In fact, it was her point that everyone has them, and that being a Christian meant a lifetime of daily battle with those "less holy" aspects of our natures.

She was pondering the question of "Is homosexuality wrong?" She clearly had no bias against gay people and in fact ended her thoughts with, “In the Bible, it's wrong ... however I know so many nice, good people who are gay."

It was the “however” that rang my logic-alarm.

Of course there are many nice, “good” people who are gay. There are also horrible people who are gay. Their sexual orientation has nothing whatsoever to do with how good or nice they are! To say, “I know many perfectly wonderful people who are gay" is nice to know, but utterly irrelevant. That gay people are awful human beings was never the claim! It’s a classic straw man fallacy. One may as well say, “I know plenty of gay people who wear a size 8 shoe.”

So what is the “real” question, and how does the thoughtful Christian answer it? The real question is: "Is homosexuality one of many dark human urges that Christianity insists we battle, or is it simply one of many human traits – like hair color or height – that have no inherent moral value?"

The honest answer of a secularist might be, “Homosexuality is not a dark urge. It is just the way some people were born. We don't blame people for being tall or short or fat or thin, why should we hold someone accountable for being gay?"

I might then agree or disagree with that person, but at least they would be responding intelligently to the argument at hand, rather than knocking over a cheap straw man.

Another common misnomer is that because something is “natural”, or because you’re “born that way”, it is inherently good. There are many things we’re born with that we are called upon to battle every day in the name of decency. It could be an aggressive nature. Or crippling shyness. Or a speech impediment. Or a propensity toward alcoholism. We are certainly not encouraged to celebrate these things just because we were born that way!  Whether homosexuality falls into this category we honestly don't know, but it's not valid to assume that because a trait is natural it is to be celebrated.

It's very likely that the Christian and the Secularist will never come together on this particular issue. But my hope is that as we continue to discuss and debate these difficult issues we do so with deference and respect.

Sadly many people prefer the straw man because it enables them to engage in ad hominem attacks; “Christians are intolerant”, or “You just hate gay people”, or "You're a bigot" - like a petulant child the offender shouts out insults, shuts down the discussion and walks away fraudulently claiming victory.

I guess in the end we all just have to demonstrate the courage of our convictions while maintaining respect for peacefully opposing viewpoints. It is, after all,  the Christian thing to do.