Not sure how to launch into this, so, head-on: Behind every policy is an assumption as to how people will react to that policy (when implemented.) Trying to understand what those assumptions are:
Anti-abortion conservatives seem to assume that if abortion is banned, that women with unwanted pregnancies will throw up their hands in defeat and mutter, “Well, guess I’ll have to carry the pregnancy to term, then.” When in fact many do not or will not.
Pro-LGBT liberals seem to assume that if laws are passed that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (i.e., banning bakers from refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding,) that religious folks will cave in and…provide services for LGBT. When this does not make sense - if someone believes that doing so is an affront to God, you cannot expect that they will cave in in favor of manmade laws as opposed to not offending God. (Whether the belief is correct or not is irrelevant; it wouldn’t make sense to do so if that is what they believe.) It would be like trying to compel a Muslim to eat pork; you are not going to get him to eat pork just because you require him to. (not saying that eating pork is akin to baking a gay-wedding cake in the sense of discrimination, but in the sense of how intensely a religious belief is held. Many liberals, IMHO, do not understand just how intensely or firmly religious beliefs can be.)
etc. etc. IMHO, a great many liberals and conservatives who propose or pass policy, do not understand how intensely their opponents feel about their stances, or the true reasons that their opponents stand so immovably in them. You cannot get someone to change their views just by passing a law compelling certain external behavior.
Over time, Civil Rights laws *have *changed the way people of color are treated in public accommodations, in voting, and in employment. Prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation will probably also work, albeit imperfectly and slowly.
I expect that they will give in because that’s what has almost always happened. It was the force of the law that broke segregation. The law is real while God is either nonexistent or non interventionist, so the law tends to win against religious bullies in the end. Especially since they* are* bullies, they like to prey on the weak.
And it’s not like I consider an unrepentant bigot being punished a negative outcome.
And it’s a rarity these days for churches to refuse to marry interracial couples, and that doesn’t even have legal force behind it.
What I expect judging from history is that they’ll cave in under legal pressure, hate it until the end of their days, and that the* next *generation will pretend they were always in favor of same sex marriage and only a bigot would claim otherwise. They’ll just pick some other target to vent their hate on.
Not overnight, no. But abolishing slavery seems to have led to changed attitudes. ERA has been largely successful. ACA had its detractors but is more popular than not.
Some things must be done because they are right and just, over the objections of those whose reasons and reasoning is, well… wrong.
I think liberals really underestimate how much rage them just existing can fill conservatives with. Even tepid legislation like the affordable care act can fill conservatives with rage.
At root their rage is likely more due to their individual and collective identify being under threat from change and diversity (America rapidly becoming less white, patriarchal, Christian, conservative and native born), but I don’t think liberals really understand how much many of then hate us for things we consider fairly innocuous if not outright benevolent (like health reform).
On the other hand I think conservatives understand how much the left (liberals, minorities, empowered women, etc) hate them but they deal with it by cheating the system to disenfranchise these people via gerrymandering, voter suppression, abusing legislative rules, neutering the power of governors when a democratic governor wins, etc.
Whites in the south understood how much black people hated them. They dealt with it by engaging in organized domestic terrorism from the kkk and police as well as taking away black peoples rights (voting rights, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc)so black people couldn’t defend themselves from abuse. I think liberals need to get realistic that those attitudes are alive and well in modern conservatives. They treat some people like shit, then they get afraid of retaliation so they oppress the people they treat like shit, making the cycle worse.
I expect that if businesses are required to serve folks regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, then LGBT folks will be able to get service at businesses. That’s pretty much it. Just like forcing businesses to serve black people was about making sure that black people could get access to vital services, not about changing racists into non-racists.
Some great responses here that I largely agree with.
My two cents on this topic is Democrats/Progressives/Liberals seem to repeatedly underestimate how their policies are going to be spun. It’s like they’re surprised when relatively common sense and benign but nuanced policy is quickly summarized into talking points of “Homosexual agenda”, “Socialism!”, Anti-Captialists". I mean… after the 1000th time you’d think they’d get smarter about presenting these ideas in ways that takes the wind out of the sails of the historical knee jerk reaction/buzzwords used by the Republicans/Conservatives/NutJobs and can be consumed by the sound-bite driven opponents. But nope… they keep shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly by failing to employ any tactic that boils down complex policy to “This is why it matters to you” messaging. It’s always “My 1000 Point Plan to addresses this complex issue and accounts for every single racial, economic, social, and religious group and if you’ll just look at subsection 4.1.3 paragraph 4 you’ll see that provisions for the protection of indigenous herbs grown in urban environments are granted exceptions under provisions outlined in section 9 article 1 subsection 9.1.6…” or “If you let me explain the complexities for the next 60 minutes you’ll understand why my plan is better!” GAH!!! KEEP IT SIMPLY STUPID!!!
Workable plans are always complex. And if you come up with a simple way to describe it, it will be an over-simplification. Over-simplification means not 100% correct, and right-wing pundits will pounce on it as a lie. You just can’t get past people who have decided to oppose your plan before they even understand it.
The OP sounds like he/she thinks that policies are proposed relative to the opposition. I don’t think that is ever the case. Pro-lifers never consider the POV of the abortion rights crowd. Liberals don’t consider the feelings of conservative voters when pushing for equal rights for LBGT’s.
Policies are proposed based on how they appeal to the supporters, never on their lack of appeal to the opposition.
How successful these policies are does depend on the opposition, but not the proposal.
(Sad to say) you have this backwards:
When anti-abortion conservatives propose to ban abortion, they are hoping for all fellow anti-abortionists to say “hell yeah !” and more importantly “I will continue to vote for my congressmen who propose and vote for such legislation”
When pro-LGBTQ liberals propose laws to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, they are hoping for all pro-LGBTQ supports to say “hell yeah” and “I will continue to vote for my congressmen who propose and vote for such legislation”
It’s not about trying to convince the “other camp”, it’s about rallying your own camp (and recruit more to your side) to achieve what you are proposing. That is how modern politics works.
Now as to what they think of the “other” camp: it’s pretty much “f*ck em because I know my view is right/just”. A perfect of example is abolishing slavery. Yes, there would be a huge economic impact on the slave owners who relied on “free” labor. But to take advantage of fellow humans in this manner was “just wrong”.
It is not like when rape was banned rapists just threw up their arms and gave up rape. However, there is much less rape than their would be in a land where it is not outlawed. There are always people on the margin.
I think that both liberals and conservatives generally believe that the reaction to policies will be first-order only.
Let’s add some tariffs. It’ll make foreign goods more expensive which will boost domestic sales, yay! Surely other governments won’t respond in any way.
Let’s pay for people to go to college. It’ll mean more low-income people go to college, yay! Surely colleges won’t capture the additional money by raising prices.
Let’s undo this regulation. It’s existed for decades but our regulators catch almost no one violating it. Surely no one’s going to change their behavior now that we’re not looking.
And so on. The law of unintended consequences is mostly about consequences that are eminently foreseeable and no one bothers to think about it.