Half formed opinions that will probably haunt me later

I've been having a heated argument on Facebook with a fellow Nerdfighter about LGBTQ* rights. It's insane to me how some people are still opposed to them. In fact, a definite majority of people world-wide oppose LGBTQ* rights, which is terrifying. There are a lot of terrifying things happening right now. I think most of them stem from a basic fear of anything different and a profound lack of respect that people hold for each other.

Tangent.

Said argument has somewhat liberated me, though. I am confident in certain things now that I probably knew before but didn't put into practice: primarily that apologizing for certain viewpoints is a harmful concession. That being polite is no excuse for a prejudiced attitude. That I refuse to apologize for refusing to accept prejudice as a valid difference in opinion, regardless of how nice the other person is.

Which leads me to this: the thing is, when you meet homophobic people, or racist people, or people who hold some undesirable quality, it's almost more jarring when they're also nice. There are plenty of people in my life who hold harmful opinions about things about a multitude of political issues who are on the whole lovely people. Over the internet, or anywhere with a pretense of anonymity, it's easy to write people off as "homophobic" and assume that they are bad people. But in real life, it's entirely possible that I would grow to like a person and then discover their harmful opinion. I don't think that negates the good things about them. I think it's a reminder, more than anything, of how our society mandates so much of our attitudes towards everything. How is that generally lovely people can believe such an awful thing? I won't say brainwashing. I will say... it sucks.

I will also say that I love Margaret Atwood's poetry. Granted, I've read a grand total of two of her poems so far. But they were a good two.

Also -- Alex -- sorry for stealing your day? I know you said you're feelin' Wednesdays. I am feelin' Wednesday today too. Bitches get stuff done.