[quote=@Penny] It probably says something that I wouldn't have bet money that neither of those things didn't happen... I get what you are saying in a larger sense. It is impossible to have complete information in almost any real world situation and you cant be certain of what information you have, it might be right wing bull, or left wing fear mongering or what have you. Even so, that doesn't translate completely. Lets say that Politician A has on his platform: I Politician A, think that gay marriage is an abomination and should be opposed. That isn't nuanced information that you need to sift your information sources to obtain. If you vote for Politician A you are responsible for (even if only to a small extent) the action that Politician. You might have voted for him for another reason, but that just means you have done the moral calculus and come up with infrastructure projects are more important than gay rights. That is a moral decision you have made. I might still decide to have coffee with you of course, but I shouldn't be giving you a pass on it just because you expressed it via a ballot. [/quote] Well it's even more nuanced than that. Let's say Candidate A thinks marriage equality is awesome, and openly supports it, but picked a VP who disagreed entirely (but whose position gave him no legislative power to enact anything); then candidate B openly opposed gay marriage until it became politically necessary to pander, gave it token support, then smelled blood and successfully branded A a homophobe. Then you, hearing that A is a homophobe and hearing that I voted A, call me a homophobe (or "part of the problem" if you're feeling kind). THEN, because that wasn't enough, you declare all the LGBT supporters of A "Not Gay," throw them out of your culture entirely, and physically attack (as in with guns, knives, bats, and firebombs) A's supporters whenever they threaten your homophobic narrative. You know, as a pure hypothetical, because [url=http://reason.com/blog/2017/06/09/lgbt-pride-parade-turns-away-gay-trump-s]that[/url] [url=http://www.berkeleyside.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Milo-protest-800x600.jpg]never[/url] [url=https://9gag.com/gag/aMwG9GW/co-founder-of-paypal-peter-thiel-who-is-gay-is-declared-not-gay-by-the-liberal-media-because-he-is-a-conservative]happened[/url]. IF ALL OF THOSE THINGS were, like, in a parallel universe or whatever, to happen -- then how would I, as your average run-of-the-mill A supporter, take [i]one single word[/i] of B-supporters' diversity narrative seriously? Right? So that's just the one side. Then there's the other side, which I won't bother laying out because you've got plenty of ammo already (maybe something along the lines of Jesus Loves Everybody but Commands Me to Punch Gay Kids All Day). Now take those two sides, right, and pick a random person from each camp. Which one is IMMORAL??? Then remember that really, what this all boils down to in the end is which side thinks the corporate earned income tax credit should be 7.1% and the other side thinks it should be 8.2% and [i]that's the real actual reason why everyone is being mobilized in this way.[/i] It's [b]fucking ridiculous[/b] to introduce some concept of morality into that. And that's why you shouldn't judge one asshole based on the actions of another asshole. WHICH -- again -- is [i]literally the cornerstone of diversity, tolerance, and community,[/i] just in case anyone forgot. (this rant brought to you by: not as much bourbon as you might think)