Is the crime more heinous because the victim was gay? Are the gay victim’s life, or comfort, or rights, inherently worthier of protection than someone else’s?

That’s a very good point.

At the surface that would appear to be the wise choice. And in fact I don’t know that it isn’t, but for whatever reason I believe that groups will make the right choice more often and based on the fact that my opinion or whatever it is I’m trying to do for my society might be wrong, I’d want everyone to come out and vote as they believe.

I believe in the separation of religion and state and feel that the desires of the majority are more important than having my own personal beliefs represented in government – as nice is that would be.

It’s more important to represent a majority than to represent what I or any individual thinks is right.

Maybe I’d change my mind if I was in a situation where the majority voted for a war-mongering religious fanatic but since I don’t live in the US I’m not in that situation.

Jeff, I believe in democracy as a means to certain desirable ends, not as an end in itself. I support democratic government (in the attenuated form of a Republic) because I think it has a general tendency to help bring about ends that will benefit more people more of the time. But like you (I think), I don’t believe is its own justification. If democratic government is bringing about awful things and some other form can bring about better things, then I say institute another form.

I don’t believe in unlawfully repressing the votes of people who disagree with me, but I also don’t believe in encouraging them to come out and undermine what I’m trying to do for my society.

I believe in representative government and if someone doesn’t vote, he or she is not expressing which candidates and their platforms that he or she supports.

To counter your obviously very extreme example, if the majority of people thought that child rape was a good thing and “legalized it”, then I suppose as a supporter of a democratic society I would be obliged to honour the law of the land and not invoke some kind of vigilante justice.

Though I’m not living in the United States, I understand they have passed some pretty far reaching privacy violating laws in the Patriot Act designed to protect their citizens from terrorists.

I don’t think the majority of people want those laws and if a referendum were issued I would be a lot more interested in supporting that law if I knew that is what the majority wanted.

One last point, the majority doesn’t always make the best decision. We often associate negative connotations with dictatorships, but with a righteous leader, I believe a dictatorship or a theocracy could be a very successful government.

I just prefer the idea of a democracy because it seems (in my mind anyway) easier to remove corrupt leaders in the event that corruption occurs. I trust in the people around me that while we all might make mistakes as a group, we can also fix them as a group too.