meara, I'm sorry you have to feel like that. It isn't right, no matter what you believe about the subject. What happened to basic human decency?

Yeah, but the reason the marginalization is happening is because the issues are being drummed up by people using that as a lever. Joe Normal around the corner, who thinks he doesn't know any gay people, probably didn't give a damn about gay marriage, until the hard-core conservative right seized upon the issue as a way to make political hay. They built it into a huge threat, thundering away on it, until Joe bought into the premise.

Joe Supposedly Normal probably did disagree with it. Joe Supposedly Normal, even in a liberal bubble like Seattle, has been making the lives of me and mine worse since before the rise of the demagogues. Joe Supposedly Normal made up the jury that acquitted my neighbor's daughter's rapists because the dyke was asking for it.

Joe Supposedly Normal has beaten me, spit on me, and treated me as something less than human. Joe Supposedly Normal didn't need Rush for that.

If I'm unforgiving and radical at the core, there's a lived reason for it. There are people I cared about who are dead by their own hand because their sexuality was considered abnormal.

I am perfectly capable of holding my tongue and speaking politely to my socially conservative friendly acquaintances and co-volunteers. But I will never, ever, let myself trust them again. I cannot afford to do so.

There are a whole lot of people in this country, on both sides of the divide, who don't have the luxury of informing themselves as completely as people on this board can due to a lack of time and resources.

Too true. Drives me nuts when people who rail against the myth of bootstrapping expect people to do it with social justice issues. It's not my job to teach people about any of what affects me, but it is basically my duty, because I recognize someone has to step up and not expect that everyone can autodidact their way to a deep understanding of intersectionality.

There are a whole lot of people in this country, on both sides of the divide, who don't have the luxury of informing themselves as completely as people on this board can due to a lack of time and resources.

I don't expect them to debate me on foreign policy (not that I'm any sort of expert either). But informing yourself that Muslims, gays, non-whites, people-not-like-you are just people who deserve rights and are not evil - I don't think of that as a luxury.

There are a whole lot of people in this country, on both sides of the divide, who don't have the luxury of informing themselves as completely as people on this board can due to a lack of time and resources.

Yes, this. It's that old dictum of never attributing to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance.

Those people on that video clip we mentioned last night, the folks at the Romney rally with their utterly nonsensical claims about Obama: sure, there's a certain amount of malice there, but most of that was just ignorance. Ignorance in the broader sense--ignorance of logic, of the world, of the ways in which "Those People" have the same concerns and worries that they do.

'Suela,

No, I think with that video it was all malice. they are ignorant, but they want to be.

I don't think of that as a luxury

I think a single mom (or dad) working two jobs and going home to three kids might disagree with you.

Of course, I also think for a lot of people it's easier to vote whatever party line they've always voted, or their parents have voted, and not think too much about it. Which is just easier. Not right, but easier.

Whoops, random capitalization.

Plei, please believe I don't mean to minimize your feelings. I'm sorry I upset you.

I don't think I'm explaining myself very well, and I'm hardly the best banner-carrier for sensible conservatives (not being one myself), so I'll bow out.

I think this is one of the places where public education might make a difference. Knowing what happened during the Revolution is important, but actually knowing the laws of your state and your country are probably more so right now. I think some people don't realize what the laws are, or what their ramifications are (see: voter ID as a perfect example).

Plei, please believe I don't mean to minimize your feelings. I'm sorry I upset you.

I'm not so much upset as just passionate about this particular issue, though I suspect we define sensible conservative differently. I was raised, after all, by Canadian atheists.

I was raised, after all, by Canadian atheists.

That's awesome.

My Christian grade school taught me homosexuality was evil. It took my best friend coming out to me in college to change that.