If you want to look at a thing we wrongly criminalize that won't immediately turn the majority of the population against you, consider drugs and how we lock some people up for decades for possessing a plant.
Both examples are systemic of a couple of sociological concepts that continue to be very popular in the American sociopolitical venue.
1) Moral Entrepreneurs - People (like politicians) that build their reputations by clearly defining an enemy (i.e. drugs, sexual "deviants", etc) and then work against the defined problem as their heroic stance for good in the face of the Evil that has been created. And their primary tool:
2) Moral Panics - Created by those who fear or stand to benefit from what they consider deviant or wrong, these are campaigns to alert and threaten the public with an apparently deviant behavior and popularize sentiment against those who practice it.
>a thing we wrongly criminalize that won't immediately turn the majority of the population against you
20 years ago talking about drugs in a favorable light would have turned the majority of the population against you because the moral panic was still in effect. There are currently minors being charged with manufacturing and distributing child pornography for taking a picture of themselves and MMS'ing it to their girl/boyfriend and being labelled as pedophiles. In another 15 years it will probably be understood that sexual preferences do not necessarily dictate sexual abuse and that many people labeled as pedophiles have been wrongly labeled in largely the same way as the guy who was found to be in possession of less than a gram of weed while walking past a school and hit with charges as a drug dealer with intent to distribute to minors or the gay man charged with sodomy 50 years ago. It's all a matter of the time and context of issues.
1) Moral Entrepreneurs - People (like politicians) that build their reputations by clearly defining an enemy (i.e. drugs, sexual "deviants", etc) and then work against the defined problem as their heroic stance for good in the face of the Evil that has been created. And their primary tool:
2) Moral Panics - Created by those who fear or stand to benefit from what they consider deviant or wrong, these are campaigns to alert and threaten the public with an apparently deviant behavior and popularize sentiment against those who practice it.
>a thing we wrongly criminalize that won't immediately turn the majority of the population against you
20 years ago talking about drugs in a favorable light would have turned the majority of the population against you because the moral panic was still in effect. There are currently minors being charged with manufacturing and distributing child pornography for taking a picture of themselves and MMS'ing it to their girl/boyfriend and being labelled as pedophiles. In another 15 years it will probably be understood that sexual preferences do not necessarily dictate sexual abuse and that many people labeled as pedophiles have been wrongly labeled in largely the same way as the guy who was found to be in possession of less than a gram of weed while walking past a school and hit with charges as a drug dealer with intent to distribute to minors or the gay man charged with sodomy 50 years ago. It's all a matter of the time and context of issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic