One of the dangers in wrapping up your arguments in claims of “rights” is that it tends to encourage self-righteousness and a blindness to the flaws on your side of the debate. When you believe that the other side is not merely opposed to your position and the law or policy you would like to see enacted, but is dedicated to denying you your “rights,” well, it becomes much easier to justify all kinds of things. When Rod explained why he finds the prospect of harassment and theoretically perhaps even violence done to him and his family because of a political donation to be chilling and worrisome, Andrew responded with this:

Rod needs some help. This stuff is just deranged sexual panic – mixed up with fantasies of anti-gay violence.

Suffice it to say that whenever a writer finds himself declaring that someone else’s considered opinion is “just deranged sexual panic,” he has lost perspective on the matter at hand. Denying completely the rationality of your opponent is certainly not going to persuade him or anyone else. That said, what exactly is the reasonable case for harassing supporters of a constitutional amendment with which you disagree? It would be intriguing to see that argument, because I don’t think it exists. Had the outcome been reversed and the identities of supporters of No on 8 were publicized as part of a campaign to intimidate and punish them socially and economically, I tend to think that Andrew would find this to be very objectionable.

Boycotts I might be able to understand. Obviously, a person is free to patronize or not patronize establishments whose owners take political stands that offend him, and business owners are taking risks with their business that they don’t have to take when they support measures that are highly controversial in their town or city. Boycotting stores over these questions seems like a dreadfully dreary way to go about life, but at least it does not cross over into the potential for intimidation. More to the point, Andrew has often written about how ruinous he finds culture war debates to be to the quality of political discourse in America, but nothing could be more likely to deepen culture war divisions than these polarizing tactics and the rhetoric employed to justify those tactics. “Suffer the consequences of your donation” is a rather grim slogan, and one that intensifies hostility between political camps. It should be obvious that this sort of treatment will harden people in their views and alienate middle-of-the-road voters who previously sympathized with you; it will invite imitation from your opponents and will eventually come back to haunt the people who defended it. As a purely political matter, this sort of overreaction is a gift to the opponents of gay marriage, but for my part I see nothing good coming from broadcasting such information to angry activists who believe that the people on a certain list or map are depriving them of fundamental rights.