In that case my second paragraph applies. If they are not being better than a conservative or centrist, why should you prefer them over a conservative or centrist?
I actually don't, and that is the problem. I actually have less respect for someone who shares many of my principles but is afraid to stand up for them when the going gets tough, then someone who espouses principles I loathe but has the courage and fortitude to stand behind them no matter what the opposition. My point is that those who choose to utilize the mantle of "liberal" or "progressive" need to start growing a pair and not acting ashamed of what they believe or support.
But you don't vote for that, and really, nor do 99% of liberals, and for that matter neither do conservatives. So why continuing to buy a defective product?
The main problem with most of the 99% in the U.S. is that they always talk about wanting "change," yet that always translates as nothing more than shifting between supporting a Democrat or Republican in the Oval Office, whenever they get fed up with the performance and track record of one or the other after giving each eight years in the hot seat. They need to define "change" in a bolder, less repetitive fashion, and begin supporting a publicly funded third party en masse. Things would be quite interesting if that happened.
How about "they did not believe in gay rights or gay equality" and so were perfectly happy to contribute to their oppression? Why assume they had a secret sympathy if they never showed it?
For the same reasons as I mentioned before. In the case of many, I can believe that. But in the case of all of them? No. I have this theory based on the behavior of many of many liberals of today. In fact, Bruce Rind reported that when all the liberal politicians in Congress who voted along with the conservatives in 1998 to unanimously condemn the objectively produced results of the Rind Report, a few of the former approached him privately afterwards and apologized for the "silliness" of their action, but whined that they felt they had no other choice but to go along with the mainstream view or face attacks and smear campaigns from their conservative opponents. The liberals will only develop an official stance on some sort of social issue if they feel it's politically "safe" to do so.
Similarly, during the early days of Wicca's rise to prominence, during the 1970s, it was typical of Wiccans--who all tended to be mainstream liberals in their general worldview--to have very open-minded views on youth sexuality in a general sense that was completely in harmony with liberal principles and Wiccan tenets of having a positive attitude towards sexuality and the expression thereof. But when the conservatives began accusing them of being "child molesters" or "supporting child abuse" once the sex abuse hysteria really got going from the early 1980s onwards, almost all Wiccans quickly switched their stance on this issue, and since then have swung conservative on just this one issue (i.e., the matter of youth sexuality, and the related idea of our societal conception of anyone under 18), in concert with mainstream liberalism in general. They did this because, like typical liberals, they felt their rise to mainstream acceptance would be precarious enough in the face of the growing Christian-based conservatism at the time, so they decided to "cut back" on the parameters of their principles in regards to just this one issue in the hope that it would enable them to weather the storm much easier. Of course, they attempted to come off as genuinely "open-minded" by being heavily gay-friendly in their positions and stances, since it remained politically "safe" for mainstream liberals to openly support gays (and soon, transsexuals). Truly hate-mongering anti-MAP orgs like PJ and AZU attempt to display a veneer of "open-mindedness" by similarly supporting and recruiting gay members into their ranks.
And speaking of which, let's not forget that the gay community, who were once more or less accepting of at least the ABLers amongst their number [Adolescent Boy Lovers, for the newbies], did exactly the same thing during the 1980s into the early '90s for the same reasons. These two examples provide more evidence for my stance, I believe.