This article is among many recently that have been citing Pew&#x27;s ongoing research into political polarization.  That&#x27;s starting to bug me because although Pew puts out a nuanced 100-page interpretation of their data, most news outlets can&#x27;t be bothered with nuance.  Of particular interest to me are underlying long-term trends that must necessarily be interpreted by Pew&#x27;s method as &quot;polarization&quot;.  One of their ten questions to classify respondents into liberal or conservative bins is whether homosexuality should be accepted or discouraged.  This question probably made as much sense in 1994 as a question about interracial marriage would have made in 1950.  At that time interracial marriage was universally opposed by white people (96% opposed in a poll), but today it is universally accepted (87% not opposed in 2010).  Acceptance of homosexuality is on a similar long-term trend.  Many people were opposed to acceptance of homosexuality in 1994 for the same reason that 1950&#x27;s white people were opposed to interracial marriage: those people were bigoted assholes.  As those bigots get old and die the trend shifts dramatically to acceptance, and it&#x27;s not going to shift back, ever.  If you doubt this just look at the trends by respondent age.  Practically all Americans under 30 years old are accepting of homosexuality.<p>So, given that long-term trend, it seems quite silly to say that liberals are now more consistently liberal, and that amounts to polarization.  In the past there were people who were liberal on the environment or racial equality or other issues but were against gays, or were liberal on the environment and were against both racial and sexual equality.  Those people are now dead.  To call this polarization is to treat with moral equanimity the positions of tolerance and of hate, which isn&#x27;t useful.  There are not equally valid positions.