A few years ago I was mulling a work commitment with the Christian Appalachian Project, a project that works to better the lives of families in the Appalachian region. Because I had the advantage of being online, I decided to ask a few I knew online who lived in that region what they thought of CAP.
The response was nearly unanimous. While they appreciated the intent, they disliked the way CAP was working to destroy the Appalachian culture and replace it with a culture more in line with the rest of America.
I had to stop and think, about how many of our society's values are based on cultural judgements. I have known far too many people who have been penalized because their culture and values differed from the societal "norm". They range from the Arizona woman whose children were removed because she chose to live in a Tipi, to the family I just mentioned whose children were removed because they lived without running water, to our own experiences with social workers who dislike our views on immunizations, homeschooling, and many other topics and feel that dislike to be grounds to enforce us to follow THEIR way of thinking.
Oh sure, we give lip service to "individualism" in this country. But even that "individualism" must fit into a label or else you strongly risk being ostracized. We have reached a point where being weird or eccentric is grounds for a call to CPS, or (in even more extreme cases) federal agencies to investigate the person who chooses to live in a different manner.
The irony is that this is reaching epidemic proportions as the perpetrators of these scams insist that we embrace "diversity". Their definition of "diversity" is limited to sexual practices, and they have no problem aiming their hands at conservatives and others who do not embrace this definition.
Culture is not law. Nor should it be seen to be. The lifestyle choices I make for my family are not the same as yours, nor would I expect them to be. But they ARE mine to make, and I WILL insist that you respect that right, even if you don't respect ME.