The new bigotry?

So this guy is bellyaching to an advice columnist about his family signing the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment petition. She tells him he shouldn't condemn his family based on their names being on a website, that their names might have been put there fraudulently, that they might have misunderstood what the petition is all about, etc., etc.

Notice what she doesn't say?

She doesn't say that, if his family did sign the petition and did understand what it was all about, that this is their own valid point of view and their right to express it freely. The implication is clear: that such an action would be wrong on their part.

Think I'm exaggerating? I think this attitude has been developing for a long time -- you see signs of it all over the place -- and we're going to see more and more of it. Once homosexuality was declared an inborn and unchangeable trait (even for those who would like to change), it was inevitable that one day people who sign petitions against same-sex marriage would be placed on the same level as those who wouldn't let black people sit at lunch counters or at the front of buses. And that, of course, would mean that the petition-signers' views have no place and no right to be considered among decent people.