Stinking elephant carcass in the room. 50% of that jury was apparently comprised of homophobic,

[Ms. Toad]

39. I have mixed feelings.

As a general rule, I agree with you. I have dedicated my life, in large part, to doing just that - in small and large ways. I am out wherever I go in real life - that, in and of itself, is an education. We were the first same gender couple to be married in our church (it took 8 years of engaged dialog and 6 years later, we have just published a book about the process). We were also the first appellate second parent same gender adoption case in our state. Just a sampling.

But here, I'm pretty discouraged about solving the problem by dialog alone. Population turnover(constantly bringing in new people to educate), and entrenched habits among those here of being able to get away with a lot of pretty nasty stuff, go a long ways to convincing me that we need a combination to get the ball rolling. Bouncing a few who have been here over the years and still insist on spouting bigoted nonsense and claiming innocence (or complaining about the crybabies), a jury system that provides a better than even chance of hiding offensive stuff, combined with educating around the ones that don't get hidden - at least until we have established a kinder, gentler, DU - seems to me a better mix.