Hold on for a second. Texas had the same split in the 2016 as Ohio. If you want to carve up the US to drop some crazy state-level republicans you would not end up with much country left.
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They are also about deepening socioeconomic divides.
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It also has a lot to do with republicans losing control even with the recent big win. They are making huge changes to keep their religious base (who is frequently the only ones ever voting) putting them in place, because local elections in deep red gerrymandered districts are getting a bit purple.
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I know you’re joking, but the sharia tradition is actually really complex and heterogeneous when it comes to the issue of abortion. There is disagreement between the (vastly more common) Hanafi school of thought which considers abortion permissible for any reason up to 4 months and in cases of maternal health thereafter, and the more conservative Maliki school which prohibits it. Modern Muslim-majority nations also represent a range of legal opinions: compare (relatively liberal) Tunisia or Uzbekistan with the Gulf nations (pretty restrictive) with South Sudan (totally prohibited). And many of those legal prohibitions were only put in place under colonial rule, and so arguably don’t really represent ‘tradition’ as much as Euro-Christian values.
I guess what I’m saying is, using ‘Sharia Law’ as a shorthand for ‘no matter how things are bad here, they’re always worse in the Muslim world’ is kinda unfair and inaccurate… in this case, it actually might be worse in America than in many Muslim-majority nations.
http://www.islamawareness.net/FamilyPlanning/Abortion/abortion3.html
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Judging from how many conservative legislators are gay, I don’t think that your ‘personal impact’ strategy is likely to have the desired effect. I haven’t noticed much ‘compassion seepage’, if any.
I’d guess that most of those involved in the Terry Schivo (SP?) case had to previously let a loved one go. It happens to most of us past a certain age. From them we got only false outrage.
I wish that these people showed growth that effected policy, but I don’t see it happening. Maybe I blinked.
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Dan Savage, for one, would disagree with you. He often points out that virtually all gay people have some straight people in their lives who are special to them.
It’s not that they’re gay that makes them hard to reach. It’s not even that they’re conservative. It’s that they’re misogynistic, blinkered assholes. The trick, and it is a difficult one, is to get them to feel empathy.
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I’m not seeing how what you said in response differs from what I said.
Homophobic gay legislators are just an example. And, I suppose, empathy IS the missing element.
There seems to be little evidence that personal experience affects policy among conservatives. Though I expect that there are exceptions.
Oh, and what about Dan Savage again? I certainly have gay people who are dear to me. Though many of them died. I’m of that age.
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