There are certain words and phrases that should be innocuous but are used by some people with a sneer or a snarl to show that they disdain the thing they are talking about. The most obvious example is “liberal”. (And I won’t even get into how most people are completely fucked up by the actual origin of liberal politics- but it’s why I describe myself as progressive instead of liberal). But it is not the only one.

Consider “Politically Correct”. To be politically correct means to act in a way to cause minimum offense. But whenever I hear the term used it is by people bragging about how “not politically correct” they are. I generally tend to accept these statements as meaning “I am a bigoted asswipe who doesn’t mind announcing my stupidity in public”.

Then there’s “Secular Humanists”. The conservative Christians like to tell us that secular humanists are the cause of evil and will be the downfall of our “Great Christian Nation”. But what are secular humanists about exactly? (Oh Wikipedia- how I love thee!)

Some Tenets: Need to test beliefs, reason, evidence, ethics, search for truth, and building a better world.

Wait- how is testing a belief a wrong thing? And where in the bible does it say that by searching for truth and having ethics you will bring about the downfall of mankind?

And we can’t forget the “Homosexual Agenda” that is out to destroy families and marriage. First- has anyone ever seen an actual homosexual agenda? Is it leather-bound, or paperback, or maybe just a hastily scrawled manifesto that has been zeroxed a million times and handed out at the secret Gays Against Families meetings where to gain entrance you have to produce the severed head of your wife and children? What, you’ve never seen it either?

There is no homosexual agenda. There are reasoning, ethical people (both gay and straight and everything in-between) who think that people should have equal rights, including marriage. Period. I have never met someone who supports gay marriage that wants to break up all heterosexual marriages and convert people to being gay. If you have- let me know cause I would really love to see that straw man in person.

And then there’s “Modern” as opposed to “Traditional”. This one is a little different in that it is “traditional” that is used in a positive spin way- think “traditional family values”- much more frequently than “modern” is used as a smear. However, in a comment today at another site someone bragged about being “biased against modern feminists”. (as if feminists of any period have been anything but modern- feminists are always fighting the traditions that keep them from autonomy over their own lives and bodies). But why throw out tradition? If people did it for hundreds or even thousands of years- is it really so bad?

It was traditional to wipe your ass with a handful of leaves. It is modern to use toilet paper. It was traditional to bathe once a week, it is modern to shower everyday. It was traditional to be uneducated and illiterate. It is modern to be educated and able to read. It was traditional to have your marriage arranged without your consent. It is modern to choose to marry whom you want, if you want to marry at all. It was traditional for women to marry young, get pregnant often, have lots of miscarriages or stillbirths, watch their children die young of disease, and die from pregnancy complications with alarming regularity. It is modern for women to use birth control, marry later, have fewer children but that are more likely to reach adulthood, and not die from pregnancy quite so often.

With that I will say that I am a politically correct, secular humanist and modern feminist that fully supports the homosexual agenda. But only if it’s a hardcover – paperbacks will never last through the second coming or the downfall of our Great Christian Nation.