I got into a lengthy Facebook discussion with some friends this week over this story out of Iowa:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/...
A young wrestler forfeited a match in the state tournament, rather than wrestle a girl. He and his father explained his decision as having to do with respect for women and not believing it was appropriate for a man to wrestle a woman. You can view their comments in the video.
After discussing this story with many people, I have seen a frequent reaction – something to the effect of “he stood up for what he believed, stood up for what he thought was right, leave him alone, etc”.
I’ve been turning that approach over in my mind for a few days. I like to think that the world would be a better place if more people stood up for what they believed regularly. And I found myself respecting him for standing up for his beliefs.
But I have to wonder about the “personal beliefs” standard to judge someone’s actions – how far does that standard go for people? In other words, in some other situation, when do people go from “well, they did what they thought was right” to “what they did was wrong”. Taken too far, it can become a crutch of relativism and diminishes an objective right and wrong – everyone simply follows their personal beliefs, regardless of what they are.
As a thought experiment, consider how this story would have played out if the story was not “he was wrestling a female” but instead “he was wrestling someone who was black.” Assume his personal beliefs would have led him to the same conclusion. Would society say the same thing about “it’s okay he did that – it was his personal belief”? Frankly, I doubt it.