I agree ... but the problem is that this discourse isn't operating in the context of a common meta-ethical framework. It isn't just that we just disagree about

I agree ... but the problem is that this discourse isn't operating in the context of a common meta-ethical framework. It isn't just that we just disagree about the empirical evidence of a few (important) policies or disagree about about a few key moral values (or tradeoffs between values) it is that we are no working from the same moral frameworks. We are finally seeing the legacy of postmodernism becoming mainstream and it doesn't operate from the same assumptions that were crafted in the enlightenment. Luckily enlightenment values still dominate background presumptions for meta-ethical discussions, but this is why you see references to religion in this thread, the aesthetics of the discourse have many similarities.