
I think it’s an important thing for us as a culture to learn how privilege works. When a group is institutionally elevated above others; that is privilege. I’m sure most people reading this have heard this before, but I just wanted to be really clear. I actually think the rhetorical shift is a good thing. What it indicates is that privilege is starting to slip. As privileged groups like Christians, men, whites, and heterosexuals start to lose some of the privileges they’ve grown accustomed to, they see it as an attack on their liberty. That’s probably because once a privileged group gets used to a privilege, they start to see it as a right. So let’s be absolutely clear, constitutionally every person has the right to their personal beliefs unless their beliefs involve restricting the liberty of others. So now that we’ve got the basics of how the constitution works when it comes to civil liberties, maybe we can get on to same sex marriage…
As a note, I kept my definition of privilege deliberately short to show how simple it really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment