By Leah Ulatowski

Editor-in-Chief

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I’m amused that this topic is controversial enough to warrant a debate, but the only explanation for such madness is that people are hopelessly confused about what constitutes a conservative individual.

There are those who make a bad name for everyone else, such as conservatives who claim that “Frozen” is misandristic, leggings are of the devil or that promiscuity is not just as threatening to traditional marriage as anything else. However, hypocrites are a staple in every people group, including progressives.

I’m going to attempt to provide a candid conservative perspective, but a major misconception about conservatives is that we are all just like TLC’s Duggar family. In reality, we are a diverse group of people with various causes and convictions, so I can only personally give you the side of the bible-thumping Republican that the Obamas warned you about.

Let’s get a few things straight: I only condemn about four heathens to hell a week before retiring to my lair to bathe in my riches and satisfy my assault weapon fetish.

In all seriousness, I put my sparkly moccasins on one foot at a time like everyone else. I just choose to vote a certain way and make specific lifestyle choices; there is room for me in modern society and on a college campus. It saddens me that many think otherwise.

Yes, I believe in traditional marriage. I think children thrive with a mother and father who are legally bound to one another and also believe that intimacy should be reserved for marriage. I always recall “The Great Gatsby” and how characters who gave into their selfish passions “smashed up things and creatures … and let other people clean up the mess they had made,” and I just don’t want to be that person.

Being one of the caretakers to my three disabled brothers, I stand for the sanctity of life. I serve a Creator who helps me see the value in every human no matter his or her circumstances or background. That being said, I’m not a racist. I’m always excited to learn about new cultures, and I sort of like my Mexican mom and her immigrant family, you know?

The misconception that we’re heartless people probably comes from our ideology that one should pull himself up by his bootstraps. We give as much to charity as anyone else, but we believe in able-bodied people paying their own way, especially for lifestyle choices that we disagree with or the sometimes costly circumstances of those decisions.

It has nothing to do with hate. You’re a hypocrite if you think that conservative values are a violation of human rights yet feel that it is perfectly fine to force people to fund activities that are against their core beliefs.

I don’t want to rule the world or condemn anyone. I just want to eat Culver’s and watch Netflix, but I do what little I can to honor my values, which usually constitutes following my own moral compass and visiting the voting booth. It takes a very small person to be intimidated by that.