By Larry Craig

Everybody wants to be included. Nobody wants to be excluded. That wouldn’t be nice.

But the idea of inclusion has reached the status of dogma in our society today. The concept of inclusion as commonly understood is wonderful. We think of treating people kindly and with respect and love.

The problem is that you no longer get to decide what kindness and respect and love look like. We are used to thinking that those mean that we have our neighbors over for a backyard BBQ, or at least we won’t throw bricks through their windows.

But you would be wrong.

Inclusion now means that all those things that in the past might have been the cause of any possible “exclusion” we are to accept as normal and good and right.

In the past, there were certain lifestyles that were considered not normal. The question was raised: What exactly is normal? Is there some higher authority to tell us what is normal and good and right?

For most of our nation’s history and even that of Western civilization itself, there was. But now we are told there is not. There is no higher authority to tell us what is normal and good and right.

So inclusion now means that we not only accept the people who were formerly marginalized or excluded, but we accept their lifestyles as well. We are to embrace their lifestyles as normal and right and good.

And that, I submit, is a bridge too far.

I am all for treating people with kindness, respect, and love, but it has reached a point where this is not only not making sense but is harmful.

Bill Maher has touched on an example that epitomizes this dilemma like no other issue has. I don’t think another issue so clearly shows the fallacy that our society has fallen into.

The issue is obesity. Obesity has a formal definition, but more generally the idea is simply that of being overweight. But wait — even that definition is based on a standard. If somebody is said to be overweight, then there is a weight that is good, better, even ideal.

We don’t get to say anymore that any weight is good. But we know medically and scientifically that bodyweight is a direct factor in our health. Not the number of the weight, but our weight in terms of our body composition.

But this same idea of inclusion is demanding that we celebrate people who are overweight, declaring it beautiful and good. There is a whole genre of pornography of heavier women, so when it comes to beauty, there are always people who will see beauty in whatever shape or form it comes.

But inclusion is demanding that we accept this higher plane of bodyweight as just as good and beautiful and acceptable as any old standard. But science and medicine will still insist that higher bodyweight, even in smaller amounts, has a negative effect on our health. And we ignore it at our peril.

So there is an area in which acceptance of a person as a human being does not mean that we must accept everything that they do as good and right and perfect. We admit the problems with the extreme examples, those with enormous body sizes, but science and medicine tell us that the negative effects begin a lot sooner than that. We can’t let our bodyweight go to any size we want and say that is good and right and perfect.

On a related note, we have new federal standards on sex education that say there is no such thing as normative sex. That’s the one thing science should be able to tell us about sex. Are not sex organs actually reproductive organs? Even science would say that human beings are meant to reproduce. The one purpose to life that science is able to affirm is reproduction. And that demands a normative sex life. The other ones are not as good. They can be stimulating, even satisfying emotionally, but normative? No. Equal? No.

And that is one of the major issues in our society today.

In our attempt to make everybody feel warm, loved, and accepted, we have decided to ignore obvious higher truths. Some things are better than others. But we deem feelings more important than truth. We don’t even like to use the word truth anymore.

We all know people who are overweight. And yes, it is overweight. We love them, we care about them, but we know that it’s causing health issues that can lead to an early death. Should we just ignore that? Do they want to die earlier? What about those they leave behind? Are their needs and wants less important than the self-esteem of the person on the road to a too-soon demise?

Inclusion as a blind or forced acceptance of any lifestyle is not a sound doctrine to base a society on. Yes, we see the problem it is trying to correct, but the solution as currently employed is not the right one.