Turns out if your country is founded by an ultra-orthodox group of religious nutters whose entire identity is based on a rejection of fun you end up with:
50% of the population being religious nut jobs terrified of any kind of pleasure
50% of the population being total hedonists who identify themselves based on their rejection of the other 50%
While both sides suck, turns out it’s a bit more annoying when group A is always in charge.
As much as I don't like Protestantism, it's not really fair to pin the blame on them. It usually isn't their faults. Governments and legislative bodies use the complaints of one or two individuals to justify blanket/overarching legislative action, which is often done for the purpose of some kind of less-admirable reason.
That reason can vary from simple and non-conspiratorial, "We're too fucking lazy to deal with any possible future bitching and moaning about this topic so we're just going to nip this whole ordeal in the bud" (gonna be real, this is me assuming the laziest outcome. not even sure if it's realistic), to more agenda-driven purposes such as "I've/We've wanted a justification for prohibiting this and this whining person gave it to us, now I'll/we'll blow it out of proportion and make it illegal", or "Someone promised money if I passed this piece of legislation, so I'll try and find an individual to justify passing it", and so on; you get the idea.
Is it true that the individuals who are used in order to justify this legislation might be Protestant, or even might mostly be Protestants? Yeah, probably. These issues are then typically politicized afterwards, so that you feel like you have to align yourself with them if you're of X belief or Y political leaning, so what happens is that, even afterwards, it's likely that a lot of people who initially didn't agree with it were gaslit into agreeing with the legislation.
But this happens with every problem. Gay rights activists (including Lesbians here) used to disagree vehemently with lots of legislation around transgenderism, but then they were thrown into the mix with the catch-all term of "LGBTQ+"; suddenly, if you disagree with the hyper-progressivism of the LGBTQ+ movement - even if you, yourself, are a progressive - you are considered a "fundamentalist", or "traditionalist", or "conservative" or whatever other synonym that fits here idfk. Point is, it goes both ways; sometimes it's for making things illegal, and sometimes, it's for legalizing that which should've remained illegal. Same goes for turning something into a social issue when it shouldn't be one, or for downplaying a social issue which should be broadcasted more.
Which is all to say, it's not the case that "Group A is in charge". It's more that Group A has the semblance of being in charge, when the reality is that they're just a fabricated social group that doesn't actually exist in individual parts, but only exists as a whole for the purpose of being used as a scapegoat for criticism against legislators and government entities, when it is actually the case that they are responsible for the legislation which passes. Group A changes from "religious fundamentalists" into "LGBTQ+ progressives" when legalization is in question, changes to "the scientific community" when medical/health legislation is involved, changes to "manufacturers and entrepreneurs/companies/businessmen" when terms of service, technology, and the right to repair are involved, and so on, so forth. There's always a group out there ready for legislators to pick from in order to justify the next law they want passed.
And the same happens for social issues, of course, as I alluded to before. I won't go rambling on about that; I'm sure anyone who read all the above can get the picture at this point.
Legislative bodies use individual people within large groups in order to justify passing legislation. The legislation is then politicized (typically by media) and the groups, as a whole, are gaslit into accepting it (small aside: this is called "manufactured consent" in politics) and aligning themselves to it. Sometimes this is done for political reasons, some for deeper politics/conspiratorial reasons, some simply for money, some just because the legislators are lazy (though that's probably giving too much benefit of doubt). So while it is the case that they're sometimes gaslit into agreeing or aligning themselves with the policies and/or legislation, they're simultaneously being used as scapegoats. The real danger, imo, is when the group, en masse, actually changes their minds to agree wholesale to the societal aspects of this gaslighting (I think the LGBTQ+ progressives are probably the most worrisome).
also a literal chatgpt summary:
Governments often use the complaints of one or two individuals to justify broad legislative actions, typically for self-serving or agenda-driven reasons. These reasons range from laziness to political or financial motivations. Groups like Protestants or LGBTQ+ activists are politicized and used as scapegoats to justify laws. In reality, these groups are not in charge; they are manipulated by legislators to support or oppose specific issues. This pattern occurs across various topics, from social issues to legislation on technology or healthcare.
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u/DrDMango 1d ago
America’s prudishness is so weird. I guess it comes from how much more Christian it is than any other Western nation.