Christianity Today

This September, in response to a rash of teen suicides, columnist Dan Savage created the "It Gets Better Project." The campaign quickly garnered attention from all over. Soon everyone from celebrities to legislators to President Obama was making videos addressing teens who were being bullied because of their sexuality. The idea was to help them understand that bullying doesn't last forever—that they can look forward to adulthood as a time when they can create their own destiny and enjoy the respect of others.

In the weeks since the launch of the project, the following events have taken place.

• Maura Kelly, a blogger for Marie Claire magazine, wrote in a post titled "Should 'Fatties' Get a Room? (Even on TV?)," "So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room—just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine [sic] addict slumping in a chair."
• On ABC's The View, panelist Joy Behar remarked after viewing Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle's ad on immigration, "She's going to hell, this b---h." Angle later sent Behar flowers and a note jokingly thanking her for helping Angle's campaign raise more money. Behar's response: "I'd like to point out those flowers were picked by illegal immigrants. And they aren't voting for you, b---h."
• Tim Profitt, a volunteer for Kentucky Congressional candidate Rand Paul, deliberately stepped on the head of protester Lauren Valle at a campaign rally.
• In an article purporting to promote the ideals of maturity and dignity, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan called former Governor Sarah Palin a "nincompoop" for pointing out (correctly) that Ronald Reagan had once been an actor.
• Gossip site Gawker ran an anonymous story by a man who claimed to have had a "platonic" one-night stand with Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell, sharing deeply personal details intended to humiliate her.

None of these events has any direct ties to the It Gets Better Project (except perhaps the last one, as Dan Savage had made some blatant sexual suggestions of his own about O'Donnell in the same column in which he originally proposed the project). But young people watching all this might be wondering if there's really any truth to the message that once you're grown up, you'll automatically be treated more civilly.

As Elizabeth Scalia wrote in a First Things column about the suicides, "Children and young people are not stupid. If they encounter a teacher, or a preacher, talking love and acceptance in one breath and then bad-mouthing the impolitic 'other' of their own prejudices (and they do) they will reject the talk, and find their own 'other' to speak against, jeer at, and hate."

In fact, this seems to be the usual state of a culture that's hyper-politically correct on the one hand and delights in flinging insults with the other. Only in such a culture, for instance, could we have a "Rally to Restore Sanity" that featured a performer who had called for the murder of novelist Salman Rushdie. Truly, as Scalia puts it, "there is a disconnect, somewhere, between theory and practice" when it comes to our notions of tolerance and respect.

Could it be that, as a post-Christian society, we no longer have any clear notion of why we should be considerate of other people? The whole idea of political correctness was formulated as a sort of secular version of "Love your neighbor as yourself," and yet the backlash it created seems to have made things worse than ever. How often have you heard someone justify an unkind remark by saying, "I'm sick of being politically correct"?

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