Senior government and politics major
The problem with being socially conservative is not the values you hold, the lifestyle you lead or the views you have on a particular policy — the problem is that you are marked a “bigot” and a “racist” any time your views are not in line with a liberal’s. No matter how objective or convincing your supporting arguments are, anyone in a blue state, like this one, will cry “civil rights violation” if you take a conservative stance on any of the following policies: affirmative action, gay marriage, reproductive rights or separation of church and state.
This campus, in particular, is extremely liberal. For being so “open-minded” on policy issues, many students simply refuse to extend the courtesy to the opposite political party.
Many social liberals are willing to be accepting and open-minded and even to grant additional rights to groups such as illegal immigrants, the LGBT community and folks with severe mental illnesses. However, offering the same respect to those of the opposite political party apparently crosses some arbitrary line — they tiptoe around words like “gay” and “alien” but are willing to throw around accusations of racism, bigotry and undereducation like it’s no big deal.
It’s also tough to be a social conservative when you are strongly committed to a Christian sect. Far too many secular citizens believe these people are “brainwashed” because of their religious upbringing. Has anyone considered the fact that many deeply religious people have seriously questioned their faiths and have weighed many ideologies when making their final religious and political choices? Choosing to remain devout in one’s beliefs requires just as much education and rational thought as choosing to abandon religion altogether. Furthermore, religious groups that advocate stricter regulations on abortion and oppose gay marriage are not motivated by some sinister desire to curtail the rights of our citizens. Their ideas are no less sane than those of a Democrat.
Social conservatives are also frequently labeled with awful stereotypes, which are largely ignored. For example, I heard a person in one of the dining halls jokingly call a Baptist from the South a member of the Ku Klux Klan because of his political views. It is morally abhorrent to associate someone with such a historically horrific group simply because he or she disagrees with you on social policy. The Inclusive Language Campaign (and everyone else concerned with politically correct language) will gladly jump all over someone who uses the phrase “that’s so ghetto” or jokes about a particular ethnic group but won’t bat an eyelash when someone applies an insulting stereotype to the conservative or religious communities.
This near-militant liberalism ends up ostracizing social conservatives, casting them aside as sheltered, narrow-minded and sometimes outright racist for their views. It is horribly insulting to be deemed a bigot or a racist in common conversation when it is unwarranted.
Being against affirmative action does not make you a racist — consciously discriminating against minorities during the admissions process does. Being opposed to gay marriage does not make you narrow-minded — denying that homosexual individuals exist or forcing them to change their identities does.
You are not a misogynist if you believe abortions should be regulated more heavily or more difficult to obtain. You are not a misogynist if you enjoy the tradition of women taking their husbands’ last names when they get married. You are not impeding the rights of women if you believe new mothers should take time off from work to recover from their pregnancies and sensibly take care of their newborn infants.
So, the real problem with being socially conservative is that there are many socially liberal folks who simply will not accept you and who will throw around reputation-damaging slander without cause. There is nothing wrong with holding a viewpoint that contradicts the campus majority, and there is no reason to cry “racist” or “bigot” every time you encounter someone who does.
Tiffany Burba is a senior government and politics major. She can be reached at tburbadbk@gmail.com.
