Monday, September 08, 2008

Threatening Your Values

My mother has a calendar from the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family hanging in the house. Speaking about the group's activism, it has the statement "...when a moral issue threatens the values we hold dear...". That phrase makes me wonder: How can your values be threatened? Either they are your values or not. If you get new information which shows you that your values were wrong you can either change them, or go into denial mode. You may feel threatened by new information or different views, but your values are not.

There is some obfuscation at work here. They are not really worried about their values at all. What the group is really worried about is not being able to impose their values upon others who may have different values. My values recognize that as wrong. They should be worried; the era of legitimized coercion is coming to a close.