The Cowardly Conservative

The poetry group I belong to is unabashedly liberal. And they assume that everyone else is as well.

I usually keep my mouth shut about politics and religion.

I have made small trial balloons of disagreements with their positions and have received exclamations of shock and outrage. They read poetry transmuting the surname of Benedict XVI into an obscenity or combining the name of the President of their country with a notorious dictator without looking over their shoulders, without fear of reprisal. They see nothing at all ironic about their decrying what a fascist, censorious society they are living in from the comfort of the meeting room of a Christian-based community church in an upper-middle class suburb.

I have thought about challenging their worldview more boldly. But I like these people, for the most part. I would miss the monthly lectures, which are generally free of political bias. I would give up hearing their poetry and hearing their opinions of mine, for even though I write alone, I do not write in a vacuum. Were I to speak out, I would give up all that and they probably would not change their minds.

So am I committing a sin of omission by not challenging their worldview? By not letting them see that a person can be a conservative and still write poetry? By not suggesting that perhaps a mayor who worries about the language a poet might use is concerned about the use of profanity in a public situation where children are present? Or worse—at a school event?
And that just because you went to Catholic school doesn’t mean that you know enough about the Catholic faith to compare Benedict XVI to the Spanish Inquisitors? And that I don’t feel like a second-class citizen in my faith just because I cannot become a priest? (After all, I can’t pee standing up either, and while that might be an occasional inconvenience, it isn’t exactly a design flaw.)
Does this fall under the category of being my brother’s keeper? Or do they bear some responsibility for educating themselves, for keeping their minds open and being sensitive to the fact that, while we share the goal of promoting poetry, that doesn’t mean we agree on everything else?