TRADITIOOOOOOOOON! TRADITION!

Okay, here's the deal.

I firmly believe that traditions, while interesting and sometimes useful for social cohesion or whatever, should not be followed or respected unless they show an observable benefit that cannot be achieved more efficiently or less harmfully (if harm also results) by some other means.  I have a mug from Despair.com that states my case pretty well.  It has a picture of the Running of the Bulls on it, and says "Tradition, just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid."

See? That.

Notice, it doesn't say that all traditions are stupid, it just says that the fact that something is a tradition has nothing to do with its utility, practicality, etc.  Many traditions are, in fact, incredibly stupid. However, I do not take issue with their existence, only with people who are incapable of re-evaluating their views on tradition in light of an obvious case in which they are asked to make a decision between what is not stupid and what is traditional.  

Case in point, the story of Lazaro Dinh:

http://news.yahoo.com/florida-man-accused-fraud-name-change-act-love-224309320.html

Personally, I don't think that I would change my name.  In fact, I would like my hypothetical future wife to take my name.  However, I don't consider it an ethical problem, and I wouldn't give up a relationship because my hypothetical fiance wanted to keep her name.  Though my last name is sweet, so I'm pretty sure no one would object to having it.  

I respect this man's reason for giving up his last name.  That is a very reasonable decision to make in light of his circumstances, so why the hell should there be any trouble?  Well, what we see is a beautifully monstrous instance of adherence to tradition falling on the wrong side of an ethical (and legal!) question.  Despite Florida having no laws which prevent this man from changing his name due to marriage, and despite having no problem initially obtaining  licenses etc.,"Following a DMV hearing, Dinh was issued a Final Order on January 14 confirming that his license had been properly suspended for fraud." And had been told "that only works for women".

A pretty selfless and harmless act by Mr. Dinh is resulting in him being prosecuted for fraud because some assholes can't get over the tradition of women taking their husband's last names.  Does that make sense to anyone? My only guess is that people have attached a moral significance to the act of a woman taking her husband's last name, so they view it as unacceptable (because it's immoral) for the opposite to occur.  As I see it, if you're willing to (il)legally prosecute someone because you prefer that they act a certain way even though when acting otherwise they are not hurting anyone, then YOU are the immoral one.

I get the sense that invoking "tradition" is like invoking the Nuremberg defense.  In the face of common human decency fly the twin flags of Preservation of Tradition for Tradition's Sake and "I was just following orders".  I should probably re-iterate that I don't think traditions are inherently bad, but damnit, people, listen to Confucious:  "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right."