It's also time to start thinking about how to get involved, too. The more I think about it, the more I'm sorry I got involved so late.

Yeah, me too. I'm thinking about what to do now, though. A lot of people are going to end up radicalized by this, I think.

I might believe that "morality" and "goodness" (quotes required) have become the property of the religious right, but I'm certainly not demonizing myself in doing so. (Is that what you meant?) I'd rather find a way to change the subject to something relevant. Gay marriage is a civil rights issue; America used to be on the right side of such things, even when mass prejudice and political expedience might have dictated something else.

There's certainly discomfort in contemplating this dialogue, but it's the discomfort of finding myself--because I'm as full of shit as anybody--talking down to anyone, which is the only way I can describe the kind of conversation necessary to convince someone that committed gay/lesbian relationships are as valid as theirs, and that, if you know your history, the USA is kind of responsible for a lot of the repression that was inevitably going to explode a la 9/11.

No argument with your final point, of course, and as noted. Must get involved.

I might believe that "morality" and "goodness" (quotes required) have become the property of the religious right, but I'm certainly not demonizing myself in doing so. (Is that what you meant?)

Not quite. But my friend Gretchen wrote asking me what the hell I meant, which provoked me to telescope the idea into a pair of grafs that say what I mean better (and seemed to pass the Gretchen clarity test):

There's an assault on conscience (in which liberals are scorned as "do-gooders," "busybodies," and "scolds") that's being perpetrated by the Coulters and Limbaughs. They've redefined conscience into a set of behaviors that are detached from any real morality, then used those new definitions to claim that liberals and their "lifestyles" aren't really moral, and that what liberals consider to be conscientious behavior is actually sort of uncool (Coulter's tack... she used to be fond of sexual slurs against liberal men) or sinfully humanistic (Limbaugh's tack on environmentalism as anti-God hubris).

Then there's a peculiar sort of self-demonization that liberals who aren't "moral" within the narrow confines of the religious right's "Leviticus Lite" indulge in wherein they seem to become uncomfortable with the very notion of morality, or even mock it. They have a hard time figuring out how to frame their concerns in moral terms because they've become reflexively relativist out of self defense, and they become suspicious of absolute moral or ethical language because they've been bludgeoned by it for so long.

And, I might as well add, it's not hard for people of faith to smell that discomfort. At least, not when they're dealing with someone who's unwilling to just bullshit about the wonder-workin' power of the blood of The Lamb.