good is bad and bad is good
There was a time when words meant what they meant. Now, in 2024, we’re allowing our society to not only change the fundamental meanings of words in our language, but we’re also bowing to their criticisms of those of us who disagree. I’ll offer a few examples.
Pride – The month of June has become known to some as “Pride Month”. When this effort was started years ago, it was known as “Gay Pride Month”, which, despite my non-understanding, I figured fine, go ahead and be proud of that. However, now it’s simply called “Pride Month” and participants act as if they now own the word “pride”. In a social media discussion about “pride” flags, one person shared a photo of the American flag, saying that this is what they’re proud of and that red, white, and blue are their pride colors. This sparked a backlash. Note that the person did not bash other posts or other flags, they simply joined in saying, “this is my pride flag.” So, not only did participants share their rainbow flags, they bashed others who shared flags that were different. Their message says that we can no longer be “proud” of a flag unless it’s a rainbow flag.
Man/Woman – We’ve all seen and heard the stories of men like Lia Thomas (formerly Will Thomas) who compete in women’s sports. These men claim to be transgender which makes them eligible to break the rules that we’ve followed since men’s and women’s sports were invented. But here’s the worst part. Many of us who disagree with such things have now changed our own language accordingly. Many outspoken opponents are now using the term “biological man” when what they really mean is “man“. Why should the rest of us now be required to add an adjective to that noun so that you know what kind of “man” we’re referring to? When I use the word “man”, you should know what I mean, and if you don’t, then that’s on you, not me. Similarly, the word “woman” has been replaced by many with the term “people with the capacity for pregnancy“. Now, of course I know that those both mean the same thing, but many people think that the term “woman” excludes some people who are not women but can get pregnant. Our world is out of control. If you’d like to dive deeper into this specific word, I highly encourage you to watch the documentary “What is a Woman?” by Matt Walsh.
Trans – This isn’t even a full word, but as I previously mentioned, it’s now been added to other words to create something that cannot exist. There is no such thing as a trans-woman. Sure, a man can cut off his penis, but then he’s just a man without a penis; he’s certainly not a woman.
Abortion – This one is the most egregious, while being the simplest to understand. There was a time when we all knew that an abortion is when you kill an unborn baby. Today, especially in an election year, it’s called “women’s health care.” What I don’t understand is if you kill a woman while she’s still in the womb, how can that be referred to as “health care?”
I could really go on and on with made up terms like “gender affirming care”. But you get the picture, language matters. The late Fr. Mark Beard, from St. Helena Catholic Church in Amite, LA, expressed a similar concern in a homily, when he said, “What’s good is gonna be bad and what’s bad is now good.”
Ah! Those who call evil good, and good evil,
Isaiah 5:20
who change darkness to light, and light into darkness,
who change bitter to sweet, and sweet into bitter!
There is so much wrong with our society these days and one of the more incredible issues is our 180° turn on language. What was once black is now white. Up is down, left is right. And yes, good is bad and bad is good. Sure, people change, technology changes, and indeed, societal norms change, But you don’t get to take words from our language, change their meaning to suit your own illness, and then expect me to play along.