Claiming that there's anything new going on here is a cheap rhetorical trick. We're seeing the complaints of people who have lost control over what's acceptabl

Claiming that there's anything new going on here is a cheap rhetorical trick. We're seeing the complaints of people who have lost control over what's acceptable. The people who would've wanted to come for the communists or the homosexuals are now on the wrong end of the prevailing winds, and whether that's "better" or "worse" depends on one's own beliefs on those issues... but it's not so much a societal change as just a window that has moved. There are books that make convincing arguments that "heresy"-based reactions are ultimately detrimental - such as The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind from a few decades ago, decrying the lack of reason in the American church from an inside perspective - but that example also shows the answer to the "what are the consequences?" question: you get a *very effectively motivated" political constituency.