Should people who oppose gay marriage be banned from this forum?

[ingemann]

They are on the AlternateHistory.com message board, so it's not unheard of for a reasonable level-headed forum ideological echo chambers to enact such a rule.

edited for a better description.

But the objection to anti-SSM opinions are in my opinion okay on AH.com, because it's a historical forum where they sometime discuss politics. But what you suggest are making a mainstream political opinion ground for banning on a political forum. It would destroy debate, create a discussion culture of baiting, both people careful avoiding saying anything direct, and also people trying to lay trap and tattling to the moderators. It would be a disaster for the forum.

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The moment it was no longer mainstreamed (as in social acceptable to support).

[ingemann]

Had this forum been around 50 years ago, on what day would the racial segregationists have been banned? MLK's assassination?

The moment it was no longer mainstreamed (as in social acceptable to support).

That's incredibly hard to define and varied from state to state. But we can all agree that hypothetical 1950s message boards would have allowed segregationists to post, but at some point they would have been banned. At some point we'll cross that same point for gay marriage, and I think you can at least argue that we're already there. I think there's a better than 50% chance that SSM will be legal in all 50 states while Obama is still president, so maybe that will be the day.

Open opposition to gay marriage are clearly as mainstream to day as the support for segregation or the opposition to interracial marriage ever was. It's not impossible that it will change in the near future, but if you look at this forum or any other bipartisan forum, the opposition to SSM are clearly still mainstream.