The tolerant and open-minded You Tube celebrity, Zach Wahls, did not mince words at the Campus Progress conference Thursday afternoon where he bashed social conservatives as being motivated by fear.
“Social conservatives have done a brilliant job of setting up their point of view as an ideal of family values,” said Wahls, but he went on to say that social conservatives, motivated by fear, are losing the battle for the younger generation.
Wahls said that the Left needs to come up with their own alternative take on the family in order to combat the Right. “Not only do liberals have values, but our values are superior to those on the Right,” he told the progressive crowd. “As best as I can tell, most aspects of social liberalism have been driven by pursuit of liberation from fear.”
Wahls, a staunch LGBT activist, painted a picture of two opposing world views and two competing ideologies, but from only the liberal point of view: conservatives are old-fashioned and backwards, and liberals are the all-knowing generation of tomorrow.
He attacked the fear that he claims motivates social conservatives, saying:
“Today that fear is, among our conservative friends, omnipresent. Fear of a supposedly encroaching Islamic faith, driving Rep. [Michelle] Bachmann’s witch hunt on Capitol Hill. Fear of a federal government that is supposedly trying to take away their guns, even though three and a half years in to the Obama administration, gun control legislation has gone nowhere. Fear of an attack on their religious heritage, of a redefinition of a fundamental institution, of the erosion and perhaps eradication of the family unit — a sentiment responsible for opposition to same-gender marriage.”
Social conservatism’s resistance to change is rooted in the nation’s “Puritan past” where “fear of God was supreme,” according to Wahls.
“It is suspicious of freedom, skeptical of reason and hostile to change,” Wahls said. “The other is rooted in our founding revolution, among those for whom logic and courage prevailed, the state informed and defined by the consent of the governed. It celebrates freedom, embraces reason and welcomes change.”
Walhs gained celebrity status on YouTube when he spoke out as an advocate for his homosexual mothers and his non-traditional upbringing. At just 21 years-old, he is an ardent supporter and activist for LGBT rights.
Correction: The article originally misquoted Wahls and has been corrected to reflect his actual prepared remarks.
