Yes, Dad, I’m a liberal.
Dad, I know you pretty much hate everything liberals stand for. You think we hate straight white men (though many of us are), think we hate people who own guns (though many of us own them), think we hate Christians (though many of us are people of faith). In fact, we don’t hate people for what they believe, we just don’t think that you should force your beliefs on us and everyone else.
You may or may not have had me in mind when you posted the meme to Facebook that said, “I’m a heterosexual, Christian, conservative, pro-life, gun-owning NRA member. How else may I piss you off today?” Followed by your comment: “Put that in your liberal pipe and smoke it!”
But that’s neither here nor there, or what these letters are about.
I’m sure you think I became a liberal just to piss you off. But that’s not true either.
You tend to portray liberals as non-thinking automatons, living in echo chambers, who just do what they’re told.
You know you raised me in a conservative home, attending a conservative church. You know I live in a conservative part of the country working at a job that tends to draw conservatives, surrounded by conservative Christian churches on every street corner.
That’s, like, the opposite of an echo chamber.
The point of these letters is to explain to you my journey. To explain why I grew away from a conservative mindset, all while being surrounded by conservative people.
I mean, how the fuck did that happen?
I don’t know if you’ll read these. If you do, I don’t expect them to sway you. I just want to answer the question, in case you’re asking: “Why?”
Why does someone cut their conservative roots?
What compels someone turn away from the values they grew up with and exchange them for a different set? (Hint: They’re not so different.)
How does someone, surrounded by the ideologies they grew up with, suddenly reject them? (Hint: It’s never sudden.)
I think part of it is apologetics. Apologetics is the written justification of something. So, in a sense this is my apology. I feel like I need to write it, if only to prove to myself, to you, and to the world that I came to my beliefs through a lot of difficult thought and study. Not because someone told me to believe them.
Maybe I just want a record of my life’s journey. I don’t know. Maybe I just want to scream into the void in the face of feeling insignificant in this universe. Regardless, this is my attempt to describe who I am and how I got here. It’s my attempt at an open and honest discussion of how I came to the conclusions I came to. It’s been a long road.
So, I hope you’ll read with an open heart and understand the journey I’ve taken.
Your son.