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And why the very existence of GLBT's threatens their entire moral order?
This is from George Lakoff's "Moral Politics - How Liberals and Conservatives Think" in a section labelled "Moral Boundaries"
(*Note: "Strict Father morality" is what Lakoff calls the conservatives "model" of reality, as opposed to the liberal "Nuturing Family" moral model)
"Strict Father morality, with it's strict division between good and evil and its need for the setting of strict standards of behavior, naturally gives priority to the metaphor of Moral Boundaries.
It is common to conceptualize action as a form of self-propelled motion and purposes as destinations that we are trying to reach. Moral action is seen as bounded movement, movement in permissable areas and along permissable paths. Given this, immoral action is seen as motion outside of the permissible range, as straying from a prescribed path or transgressing prescribed boundaries. To characterize morally permissable actions is to lay out paths and areas where one can move freely. To characterize immoral action is to limit one's range od movement. In this metaphor, immoral behavior is "deviant" behavior, a form of metaphorical motion into unsanctioned areas, along unsanctioned paths, and towards unsanctioned destinations.
Because human purposes are conceptualized in terms of destinations, this metaphor has considerable consequences. Since action is self-propelled motion in this metaphor, and such motion is always under the control of whoever is moving, it follows that any destination is a freely chosen destination and that the destinations chosen by others have been rejected. Someone who moves off of sanctioned paths or out of sanvtioned territory is doing more than merely acting immorally. He is rejecting the purposes, the goals, the very mode of life of the society he is in. In doing so, he is calling into question the purposes that govern most people's everyday lives. Such "deviation" from social norms goes beyond mere immorality. Actions characterized as "deviant" threaten the very identity of normal people, calling their most common and therefore most sacred values into question.
But "deviant" actions are even more threatening than that. Part of the logic of this metaphor has to do with the effect of deviant behavior on other people. Metaphorically, someone who deviates from a tried and true path is creating a new path that others will feel safe to travel on. Hence, those who transgress boundaries or deviate from a prescribed path may "lead others astray" by going off in a new direction and creating a new path.
The Moral Boundaries metaphor thus interacts powerfully with one of the most important metaphors in our conceptual system: Life Is A Journey. Choosing a particular path, a "direction" in your life, can affect the whole rest of your life. Imagine a parent who says, "Our son left the church. I can't understand why he turned his back on our way of life like a that." The paths you choose can be llife paths, and if morality iss seen as going along a particular path, then deviating from that path can be seen as entering an immoral wau of life. It is for this reason that the very idea of "deviance" is so powerful. In creating new paths, the deviant can make those paths appear safe to others and thus lead them to chnge thier lives...
...People who deviate from the tried and true path arouse enourmous anger because they are seen as threats to the community. For the protection of the community, they need to be isolated and made outcasts"
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