Molly Ivins (Lord, how we miss ya) wrote several times that it was the drinking fountains that turned manys of my parent's generation to the left as children--it was so ridiculously, obviously, and demonstrably wrong it just made you think what else where they lying about?
Fifty years and a whole generation later, civil rights still holds that place for me. It's not my only, or even most focused upon issue - the debt, the environment, the war, the rule of law often distract me because they seem so much more emergent. But on just about every other issue I can at least have a debate, a conversation with the other side. What's the proper role and scope of the state, freedom and security, the sanctity of life within certain narrowly defined constraints--I have my own (strongly held) opinions, but I can at least ken where the other side is coming from.
But when it comes to marriage, nothing they say makes any sense to me. Their premise is that I am somehow "harmed" by what people two doors down do in their own home, and none of their rationales even click in my head. It's the only issue where I cannot "grok" where the other side is coming from, and it drives me crazy.
As recent events (ie fisa) have shown, DK has some diversity on any given issue within its coalition, while still being a (relatively) friendly and progressive place. I'm hoping there is a Kossack out there who either has the opposing view on marriage or (more likely) can at least articulate for me in a logically coherent way where the right is coming from (an admittedly Augean task). I look forward to comments below