Thursday, July 10, 2008

The Agenda

Eric over at Classical Values links at the end of the post to a story at WorldNet Daily that declares the actions of one gay man suing Bible publishers part of "the homosexual agenda."

I'm not sure where the line is drawn, but I think we need some standards. People complain about The Agenda of opposing groups a lot, on very slender evidence. An article in an obscure publication, or a century-old document from a similar group convinces people that they have unearthed the secret plan of the other guys. Aha! We have discovered the communist agenda, or the conservative agenda, or the Christian agenda, or the homosexual agenda.

If one church advocates something, does that mean it is part of the Christian agenda? How about one state chapter of NOW - does its action reveal the feminist agenda? How many of your opponents have to be fully signed on to an idea, plus how many more willing to passively go along, before you can claim to know their agenda? How much of the leadership has to be on record? How recent does the documentation have to be?

I propose a minimum standard: one person, in no position of authority, is not enough to generalize from. One Jew, one Freemason, one lesbian, one Democrat voter - it's not a trend, okay? Criminy, is that so hard?

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