Great post. It strikes me that even when we try to avoid labels for ourselves, sometimes they are imposed by others. And sometimes a further step happens beyond the labels: consequences are imposed, depending on the labels.
This kind of imposition from the outside can sometimes leak into ones self-identity. Hyphenated Americans, for example, often start out as thinking of themselves as just Americans, but then discover that their experience is different, and they have a shared peer group of other people who have had the same experiences, because of what is imposed on them by others. And then, we blame them for calling themselves <foo>-American, when actually it was not necessarily their own doing.
Given such, it's also not hard to see why some people will decide that they would prefer to wear a label (atheist/theist/gay/Asian/Bush Supporter/whatever) as a badge of pride. Not saying this is or is not an ideal state of affairs, just that it's understandable.
This kind of imposition from the outside can sometimes leak into ones self-identity. Hyphenated Americans, for example, often start out as thinking of themselves as just Americans, but then discover that their experience is different, and they have a shared peer group of other people who have had the same experiences, because of what is imposed on them by others. And then, we blame them for calling themselves <foo>-American, when actually it was not necessarily their own doing.
Given such, it's also not hard to see why some people will decide that they would prefer to wear a label (atheist/theist/gay/Asian/Bush Supporter/whatever) as a badge of pride. Not saying this is or is not an ideal state of affairs, just that it's understandable.