A couple months ago, I passed over a Fox News article about an individual who opened up as a pedophile and is running for congressional office. I read through the article and passed by not really concerned because the article seemed to insinuate that he was considering running. I blew off the article until I further read this week another article talking about his run for office and the platform he is taking with his run.
The candidate, Nathan Larson, admits to being a pedophile and encourages pedophilia through his congressional platform. While his platform is utterly repulsive, the caveat that triggered my response was within Mr. Larson's statements about political correctness.
His statement about political correctness is as follows:
"A lot of people are tired of political correctness and being constrained by it. People prefer when there's an outsider who doesn't have anything to lose and is willing to say what's on a lot of people's minds."
While I too share a similar perspective on political correctness, I do not share his platform nor do I believe that his agenda is in fact "on a lot of people's minds."
Political correctness is not equal to all things moral, nor is it a loophole to organized immorality. We can hold to a standard of morality without being accused of being "politically correct." The political correctness that people are "tired of" is the suppression of their personal convictions about certain subjects, so they can be accepted by society as reasonable people. People are tired of being forced to voice an opinion that is not really their own.
Our society deems pedophilia immoral because we desire to protect our children and maintain their innocence. While our American youth are educated about sex from an early age, there are countless resources that confirm sexual activity too early is devastating to children's growth and development. Condemning pedophilia is not a matter of political correctness; our society deems it utterly immoral.
The writing of Michael Brown that I happened across with continuing details of this congressional candidate's run discusses how changing the age of consent will ultimately send our society into sexual anarchy. (You can find that article here.) I would argue that our society has already fallen into a state of sexual anarchy (I suppose we are on the downhill spiral.) However, protecting our children and young adults from sexual activity at too young of an age is essentially the only sexual limitation remaining.
Political correctness is wrong because forcing people to speak against what they believe does not build unity in our society. As people, we are not required to be friends or even like each other; rather, it is our duty to love and be kind. Kindness and love are entirely possible without liking someone or condoning their views. We don't need to be politically correct to show love and kindness to others; we don't need political correctness to be decent human beings. We do need to be nice, and we do need to filter what we say and how we say it – but we mustn't suppress what we know is right.
But overcoming political correctness does not mean we should compromise our morals to fight it.
Should we be tired of political correctness? YES, we should. But being politically correct is no longer just about filtering what we say, but also about filtering our moral convictions. Political correctness has become the goat by which immorality is granted a reprieve, all in the name of fighting "political correctness."
