In this house, we believe Golden Retrievers are the best

Social justice yard signs. I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share. “In this house, we eat toast with strawberry preserves…” I suppose they are mostly of the liberal variety and I am biased so I tend to agree with the messages. Last week, I noticed one I hadn’t seen before in my neighborhood. “In this house, we believe in family values, freedom of religion, American pride, personal responsibility, and freedom of speech.” I remember thinking that I agreed with all of those things too, but then right next to it was a Make America Great Again sign. Oh. So the first sign was of the conservative variety?

I came home and got on the Google to look up conservative yard signs and I found some doozies. “jobs not mobs, energy drives prosperity, God is love, freedom isn’t free, police protect us.” And on and on. Then I came across an op-ed by a woman in Colorado about how these social justice yard signs cause divisiveness instead of discourse. I absolutely agree with that. I know if the person in that house agrees with my politics just by reading that sign and I don’t need any additional information to know if they share my opinions. She then went on to explain how the signs were deceptive and didn’t share the whole truth. For example, the signs that say “women’s rights are human rights” actually are a euphemism for pro-choice. She continued on to say that the “love is love” signs actually refer to support of homosexuality and there are some people with deeply held religious beliefs that may not support a Catholic adoption agency giving babies to gay couples. There were a few more. “Science is real,” which didn’t consider the additional importance of history, philosophy, and economics. “Black lives matter,” which doesn’t mention the Marxist beliefs associated with the founding of the BLM movement. “No human is illegal,” which ignores the laws in effect to actually legalize citizenship in this country.

I started getting a little perturbed at this woman and then I looked at her credentials and realized why. She belongs to two conservative organizations that don’t refer to themselves as conservative, but good ol’ Wikipedia tells me they are. So she doesn’t share my values and I start getting all itchy? Not entirely. She just forgot to mention both sides. She didn’t refer to any of the slogans on conservative signs.

So I’ll fill in the gaps she seems to be missing. “Jobs not mobs” actually means that conservatives want people to work while liberals want to protest, riot, and loot. “Freedom of speech” is okay if it’s conservative speech. “Freedom of religion” is okay if it’s the Christian religion. “Family values” refers to heterosexual families not homosexual ones. “Personal responsibility” means you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and don’t take any money from the government if you are down on your luck.

Now before you start saying, “well Emily, you are making assumptions based on your own values and those conservatives could have a completely different meaning behind those signs.” Ding, ding, ding! You are absolutely correct! Exactly like this woman in Colorado. You see, liberals and conservatives are not so different. We both think we are “right” and we aren’t always open to discourse. So we stick a sign in our yard to protect us from having to be uncomfortable. Or to feel superior. Or because we just need a filler for that damn plant that died.

The thing is, when I saw that first sign in our neighborhood, I read it and thought, “I believe in every one of those statements. I believe in family values (my family just may look different than yours), religious freedom (every single type of religion), American pride (America! Greatest country ever! Dude!), personal responsibility (doing the best that you can do to contribute to your community and asking for help if you need it because not everyone has the same advantages as everyone else), and freedom of speech (all kinds of speech).” It was when I saw the sign next to a Trump sign that I decided this was not a person with whom I had anything in common.

So the Colorado woman recommended taking the social justice yard signs down and actually talking to our neighbors. I do think I might agree with her on that one. Or at least don’t let that sign stop you from keeping an open mind about that person. On that day that I saw that sign in our neighborhood, I decided that person was not someone I needed to know. But then the next time I saw her, I asked her about her dogs. And the next time I saw her, she was all dressed up and I told her she looked nice.

So I will give it a try. I said I’d try. That’s just the best that I can do right now. And that’s okay.