I always been struck by how fiercely conservative people oppose self-expression. The whole time I was growing up and during my young adult life, conservative Christians obsessed about hair length on boys and men. It was just SOOOOO important to them. For some who-knows-why superstitious reason that they defended out of some perfectly silly religious rationale.

But whatever the rationale was, it couldn't possibly justify their intense negative emotional response to hairstyles they didn't approve of.

Of course, it doesn't stop with hair length or color or whatever else.

You're right that it's all about personal expression. Conservative Christianity, in my experience and opinion, is all about choking individuality and forcing conformity.

It's not just Christianity, of course. One only has to look at Islam to see a religion that tends to force extreme conformity in appearance, especially for women.

And I'm thinking about a friend of mine in India whose Hindu family badger him constantly to conform his dress and hairstyles to traditional expectations.

It seems there's something dark and evil in human nature that wants to extinguish individuality in people. That wants to force people to be exactly like one another. And conservative religion is often one of the forces pushing this evil.

It's bad enough with appearance, of course. But for people like you and me, who are different in more important ways than just appearance, this evil human tendency is far more harmful.

They aren't just trying to force us to change our hair or our clothing, they're trying to force us to change who we are.

This is one of the reasons that I so intensely hate conservative religion and conservative social rules.

I'm just sick and tired of evil people trying to force beliefs and practices on others.

Nothing could illustrate that better than small-minded people opposing hair color. What superstitious fools they are!