As a conservative Christian pastor in the 1970s, my dad had very common, very strict religious ideas about hair length on boys. It was all somehow tied up with patriotism for him too. Good American Christian boys and men had very short hair, and that was that. I think in his mind, a long line at the altar call should equal a long line at the local barber shop. Because nothing said born-again Christian like white walls and crew cuts.

Oddly, this religious barbering convention didn't seem to interfere with his supposed devotion to conservative ideals of personal liberty. Somehow for him, personal liberty and self-expression did not walk hand in hand.

I've never understood the conservative impulse to force conformity in hairstyle, dress, and other personal expression.

I've never understood the hypocrisy of those claiming to stand for freedom while doing their darndest to force people to look and dress certain ways.

But that sort of behavior continues, even if hairstyle standards have loosened a little.

Many public schools still enforce particular hair length for boys, and every now and then you see the ACLU file a lawsuit over it. The school districts almost always lose, but that doesn't stop them from trying to force boys to cut their hair.

The practice has a outsized impact on members of minorities with different cultural standards, which is one of the reasons the public schools almost always lose such lawsuits, so it's very difficult to imagine how district administrators justify the practice in their own minds.

Given that schools that do this sort of thing are usually located in the deep Christian South, I guess it's not that hard to imagine.

My dad's Christian pastor practices have not entirely died out.