"Any time a person is forced to accept something that is clearly incorrect, it diminishes their capacity to continue their own personal pursuit of happiness."

An interesting sentiment. I wonder if you know who expressed it long ago?

Thomas Jefferson.

Read the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and you'll find that exact sentiment expressed. The Statute influenced Madison when architecting the First Amendment.

I'm not challenging what you wrote --I agree with much of it--but rather I'm challenging the stark manichean tone and the anachronism of applying the mores of today to judge the norms of yesterday. In his time Thomas Jefferson was a complicated figure. It only complicates things by judging him against our own complications.

Here's a thought experiment: consider; for what is some Medium writer of the year 2320 is going to condemn any one of us here in 2020...? What will some future writer say about you? Or me?

Will they look back in horror and condemnation at our (purported) blaise attitudes towards;

Global climate change?

Poverty?

Inequality?

Factory farming?

Gender strictures?

Will someone in 2320 look back on us in 2020 and say, 'shoulda, coulda, woulda...?'

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