Leftists like to pretend they are the apotheosis of tolerance and non-judgmentalmentalism, using these terms as cudgels to silence the deplorables who have the temerity to call out the intolerant judgmentalism of leftists.
Here are just a few recent examples of the cultural offenses that emerge from and reflect wild leftist judgments.
A week ago, Sara Milliken, a morbidly obese young woman, was crowned Miss Alabama in the American Miss National Pageant. Subsequently, as one would expect in a poisonous social media-saturated culture, Milliken encountered vicious online nastiness.
In response, she said, “‘Even something that you type over a screen can have a lasting impression on people.’” That’s true, which is probably one of the reasons most young women—of all sizes and shapes—don’t enter pageants that judge based to a large degree on appearances.
Milliken freely chose to put herself in the public eye by entering a pageant that judges contestants in part by appearance. She shouldn’t then expect people to withhold their opinions on what constitutes beauty.
Moreover, not all comments critical of her weight or her win constitute vicious nastiness. People ought not hurl ugly epithets at anyone, but expressing one’s opinion that morbid obesity is unattractive or that her win was unfair, dictated as it was by a socio-political ideology, is not an ugly epithet.
The obesity-celebrating crowd has judged that making particular judgments about both the health and attractiveness of obesity is unacceptable. To them, the only judgment about obesity that may be publicly expressed is affirmation. To them, Americans are free to make judgments about obesity and free to express those judgments publicly as long as those judgments align with leftist judgments.
Imagine if the winner had been anorexic. Is it permissible for Americans to judge anorexic bodies as unattractive and unhealthy? Does love for people require affirmation of all volitional behaviors, including gluttony and starvation?
Even more bizarrely, the purportedly non-judgmental crowd apply their purportedly non-judgmental views even to making judgments between males and females. So, a week ago in Maryland, the winner of the American Miss National Pageant was not a morbidly obese woman. The winner was a cross-dressing man who goes by the name “Bailey Anne” Kennedy.
In the Upside-Down where leftists live and move and have their being, outrage over a man stealing a pageant crown from women in a women’s pageant is evidence of the hateful judgmentalism of conservatives. But celebration of a man stealing a crown from women is evidence—not of the perverse judgments of leftists—but of their utter non-judgmentalism.
Unfortunately, the fake foes of judgmentalism have taken aim at far more significant issues with far more frightening implications than beauty pageants.
California has its own equivalent of Illinois’ worst lawmaker, Kelly Cassidy, and that’s State Senator Scott Wiener, a middle-aged homosexual man whose chief goal in life seems to be to use the power of the state to impose his ontological and moral judgments regarding sexuality on all Californians.
In a recent press conference, the non-judgmental, inclusive, tolerant, diversity-loving Wiener expressed his decidedly judgmental views of conservatives:
We are always there for [LGBTQ] kids. These are our kids. …
Representation matters. Ten percent of the California legislature is now LGBTQ. … [W]e know that so much of the hate directed at our community is happening in other states. Unfortunately, it’s here in California too, and we know that we have school boards in particular in some very conservative areas that are demonizing and attacking our LGBTQ youth in ways that are so so dangerous.
And so, about a week ago our caucus, the twelve of us, we said “not on our watch.” And we introduced legislation to ban these forced outing policies that some school boards are starting to adopt because we know that for all of us … in this room, in terms of coming out, in terms of when, if, how someone comes out to their parents, that is our decision and no one else’s damn business. And we’re going to make that clear in the law of the state of California.
… [W]e fight all the nasty people out there who are trying to harm us, and we’re going to beat them. (emphasis added)
Word to the childless Wiener: No California kid is yours.
Note the “non-judgmentalism” that permeates his statement: He has judged dissent from his judgments to be hateful, demonizing, dangerous, nasty attacks that harm “us”—and by us he means “queer” lawmakers and other people’s children. So, the queer cavalry, eternally on their “watch,” decided to “beat” any and all California parents who make judgments that the cavalry hates.
Wiener and his “queer” compeers sponsored bill AB 1955 that says in part,
All pupils deserve to feel … affirmed for who they are at school. … LGBTQ+ pupils have the right to express themselves freely at school without fear … that teachers or administrators might “out” them without their permission. Policies that require outing pupils without their consent violate pupils’ rights to privacy and self-determination. … Pupils have a constitutional right to privacy when it comes to sensitive information about them. … Teachers and school staff can provide crucial support to LGBTQ+ young people and can play an important role in encouraging them to seek out appropriate resources and support.
Many Americans would disagree with the claims and underlying judgments in this pernicious bill, which subordinates parents’ rights to the desires of homosexual and cross-dressing activists.
First, no school has an ethical or pedagogical obligation to affirm students “for who they are at school”—whatever that means. Affirmation of students’ feelings, behaviors, or “identities” is not the role of taxpayer subsidized schools or teachers. And students do not enjoy some nebulous right “to feel affirmed.”
Second, students have no right to have their actions at school kept secret from their parents, and teachers have neither the obligation nor the right to facilitate students’ deceptions.
Third, there exists no free-floating, absolute constitutional privacy right of minor children to keep “sensitive information” concealed from their parents.
Finally, teachers and school staff no longer enjoy the trust of parents. Conservative parents especially do not trust the judgment of school staff in selecting “appropriate” resources for their minor children who may be struggling with issues related to sexuality.
The childless Wiener and his activist collaborators are attempting to appropriate other people’s children and erode parental rights. They have judged homoerotic acts to be moral acts. They have judged the rejection of biological sex by immature, troubled minors to be sound decisions.
They have judged social transitioning (e.g., cross-dressing, incorrect pronoun usage, and adoption of new names), chemical doping, and elective surgeries that mutilate healthy bodies to be ethical and healthy responses to the discomfort some minors experience with respect to their biological sex.
And they are determined to impose their pernicious judgments on all Californians, robbing parents of the right to know what their child is doing in school.
Long gone are the days of “in loco parentis.” And long gone are the days when Democrats opposed the imposition of morality.
Don’t be deceived. Those who caterwaul against “judgmentalism” are making judgments continually. The issue is not about whether we make judgments but about what judgments we make.