| I think I’ve been fairly forthcoming as to how I feel about this issue. I’m not trying to coat it in neutrality — I just think trying to be evenhanded here engenders better discussion than coming at it aggressively. You made it a point to stress that you were asking sincerely, so I responded accordingly. The point about Judeo-Christian (or just Christian, if you’d like) norms is actually the root of the matter here, if you’ll bear with me for a moment. It seems like we can agree that there is a significant Christian influence in the laws and culture of the US, so let’s go from there. That influence is the lens through which we have to view your notions of “language neutral” and “language altering”. Language naturally evolves to accommodate human necessity, including culture and norms. The state you’re referring to as neutral is a norm that was created by Christians specifically to accommodate Christian beliefs. So asking to respect the norm in cases of conflict isn’t really “neutral”, at all — you’re actually asking to revert to a state that was created to privilege your belief system. You’re right about an influence being present in any country, and we can probably find similar examples elsewhere. For example, some Muslim-majority countries harbor negative views about women in the workplace. Imagine a man saying that working with women is an affront to his religious beliefs, and why should the historical norm give in to new trends? Ultimately, though, no one is being forced to change their beliefs — just to be accommodating of those who don’t share them. This brings us back to figuring out who must acquiesce to whom. But here’s another place where we seem to be on the same page: the pronoun issue and the marriage example are equivalent if we ignore the status quo. Should the status quo matter? Here (and in most cases) I think the answer is no — definitely not without considering who created it and whom it benefits. |