And that is sincere, Ethan. We may not see eye-to-eye on ideology and tactics, but I am pleased to see Virped do what it can to help fellow MAPs on the support front. Don't get me wrong there.

We never had any illusion of convincing the haters. A lot of people still hate gays and lesbians, but they've made a lot of progress.

The problem is that they made this progress via a Faustian bargain that required them to capitulate to a conservative framework and throw out their much more progressive agenda of the '70s with assimilationist policies designed to absorb them into the status quo as it already existed rather than changing the world for the better. It was a decision based on cowardice, expedience, and desperation, and it moved in lockstep with a mainstream liberal movement that threw out all of its most important principles to appease and gain the approval of the opponents it once diligently challenged. This tactic required them to willfully sacrifice the rights of MAPs and youths, which derailed the willingness to take up these causes during the late '60s and '70s. They could have chosen a different route, which was to challenge the conservative takeover with the conservatives zeal they did in the previous decade, rather than acquiescing and appeasing them instead. If they had taken that route, the burgeoning moral panics/backlash against the progress of the '70s may never have fully gotten off the ground, and the progress of the previous decade could have continued rather than getting cut off.

We have made progress and think we can make further progress with social liberals who subscribe to the ideal of freedom and that things that don't hurt other people should be permitted.

Yet what they accept as "things that don't hurt other people" is limited to those who are legal adults, while putting blanket oppression on everyone under that arbitrary legal line with no consideration for individual circumstances, and absolutely no consideration for the genuine harm inflicted upon many children forced to share a secluded, insular space with abusive adult "guardians". This creates the atmosphere that led to the sex trafficking panic which also targets adult sex workers by creating the widespread belief that the entire industry is corrupt, and that all adult women in the industry need and secretly yearn to be "rescued." Of course, it also demonizes all of their adult patrons, as well. Which proves that "harm" is often willfully conflated with "that which offends us the most" to the current variety of many social liberals, many of whom are censorship-crazy to an appalling degree.

For VPs, there is no question of hurting children since we oppose any sexual activity with children.

Which necessarily opposes their emancipation, as Explorer noted, alas.

Of course the pro-legalization position wants to extend sexual freedom to children, and then we get into a position on youth rights that ordinary social liberals (and VPs) will not accept.

And the fact that they do not want to accept it means we need to work towards restoring the progressive atmosphere of the late 1960s and '70s, rather than trying to appease the status quo as it now exists, since that is just continuing the mindset of the '80s that got us into the mess of moral panics in the first place. As younger people continually find ways to express their voice thanks to the growth of social media, which in turn enhances their ability to network with both each other and with adults; which is further resulting in an exponential increase in their becoming politically active, this is going to invariably result in the youth community directly knocking heads with both these hypocritical social liberals (read: centrists) of the Clintonian stripe and the Virpeds. Many of us want to improve the lot of everyone in society, without appeasing any form of bigotry, and without sacrificing any single demographic for the "betterment" (read: entitlement) of another.