fear of being made fun of as out of step etc...
Nothing new.
Just like junior high school cliques.
I agree. Americans are big hearted and wish to be inclusive and welcome. As a result, Americans have difficulty with excluding disease, vice and error.
I like how in the frontier days in 1850’s Kansas the locals would hang anyone caught stealing horses or picking fights while drunk. Tough sheriffs with quick punishment need to return.
If wearing purple socks meant approbation from friends, family, coworkers, but most of all the media, you would see purple socks worn by multitudes.
We have many maladies affecting individual and collective psyches but the greatest is still one of the oldest: an external locus of control that drives people at a primal, instinctive herd level to seek acceptance and approval.
In an era of plentiful food, clean water, warmth, shelter, etc. all of the basic needs in Maslow’s hierarchy are satisfied, leaving more time for and focus on gratification of the ego.
There is a small percentage of the ‘politically correct’ who know full well that they are cynically embracing this or that cause because they view it as a means to an end: a job, tenure, public office, etc.
The much larger percentage are those who would advocate - as vociferously as necessary - the purchasing and wearing of the proverbial purple socks - simply because they see others doing the same. If homosexuality were inherently good, natural, productive, beneficial etc. then it would not need pride movements, legal representation, attacks on faith and institutions thereof, etc. It would also not require the combined might of the courts, the media, etc.
It’s also a demonstration of how formal education can be corrupted to teach the antitheses of history, health, etc.