I forgot to make up rules

In following the latest conversations about blogging awards and such, I found myself over at HomeschoolBlogger finding food for thought about Blogging Basics:

Why Are Blogs Important?

Blogging allows you to write as subjectively, biased, and as partisan as you wish. As a blogger, you do not have to be politically correct or unbiased. Readers benefit from blogs because they have more access to the truth since the writer is able to write freely on a subject.

I agree completely! Apparently, however, blogging also includes the right to contradict oneself in the next breath so, using HSB's four (award-related) exclusion criteria (cursing, photographic nudity, sexual content, and hostility toward others), I decided to make up some rules based upon my own biases.

To be awarded one of my badges:

1. Nominees that use terms like sodomite, fornicator, etc. as curse words are not eligible.


2. Nominees that display photographic nudity are okay because I've never seen photographic nudity on a homeschooling site.


3. It's okay to post either 1st-hand or 2nd-hand sexual content. As I often post about fundamentalist Christianity (a movement obsessed with sexuality), naturally my site will be brimming with 2nd-hand sexual content. (It is, by the way, why I got a PG-rating and you didn't.)


4. Heated disagreements are okay, human even. If, however, you're waiting with bated breath for the Glorious Return when the rest of us will be casteth into the Lake of Fire, you're expressing hostility toward others, an exclusion criterion. If you're attributing death, disease and natural disasters to "abominations" like homosexuality, secularism, feminism,... you're expressing hostility toward others. Hate, even. Despite your protestations to the contrary. But, you already know that; it's why you fight hate crimes legislation.

So, there they are. The rules.