Have you ever been judged by your political beliefs?

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I've met and dated a lot of women this year, and one thing that I believe has absolutely no place in relationships is politics. Sure, it's nice to have the same political beliefs so you can have fun knocking public officials that you don't like or don't agree with their policies, but chances are you're going to run into people who have different political beliefs than your own, and in that case it's best to keep silent about politics or when it comes up, IMMEDIATELY change the subject.

Some of the women I've gone out on get-togethers with or just met online were so adamant and vocal about their political beliefs that if you disagreed even in the slightest, you were done for. This is much more common with left-wing liberal women. Sure, there are some right-wing women who do the same, particularly those within religious circles who like to believe their sect of Christianity is superior to yours, but I find that women of the very liberal mindset who are into politics are very closed minded and assume a bunch of things about you if, say for example, you are anti-abortion or if you are against government-run health care (i.e. racist, nazi).

I know exactly what you mean! (In fact, I was thinking about posting a thread like this.) I have been judged quite a bit, due to my libertarian/voluntaryist beliefs. I am not crazy at all, nor am I obnoxious, but so many people are utterly close-minded and will never hear an opposing voice.

There was a girl that I liked - never got the courage to ask her out - that was extremely liberal, as were her circle of friends. I liked her pretty quickly after I got to know her, but I already knew that her friends had basically slandered me before we never knew each other very well. I remember one time, when the subject came up, I mentioned how I'm very right wing and libertarian, and she said "I know, I've heard." My heart sank when I heard that, because I knew what her friends had told her.

I don't go round explicitly stating what my political beliefs are but I am very opinionated generally and this often gets me into trouble. I prefer to debate political type stuff on newspaper websites as there's less scope for fallouts but even then it can get nasty very quickly when you are taking an unpopular stance.

Incompatible political beliefs seem to me to be a perfectly reasonable reason for rejecting someone as a romantic partner.

I wouldn't tend to check what someone's political beliefs were but if they were too different from mine we'd invariably have a debate/argument at some point and I'd probably win which would annoy them lol

There is a lot of research relating personality variables to political beliefs. I would never date a conservative ever again... I prefer the openness, flexibililty of thought, compassion and intellectual curiosity that is more evident among liberals. I've found conservatives fearful in general, resistant to change, rigid in thought, more traditional. Political beliefs are now one of my deal breakers, because compatibility in the long term depends mostly on personality characteristics. Political beliefs are a sign of these.

I have found people are very quick to judge someone beliefs without even bothering to understand them first. That's something that I refuse to do, but I have plenty of people do it to me - they seem to be more interested in judging something than bothering to undersatnd it first. Few people understand the ideas I propose in their entirety to begin with.

I think political beliefs do have some value in a relationship primarily for the reason that the political beliefs you have often reveal the way you think and feel about humanity in general, and they also usually manage to show very clearly where your most important values lie. If you manage to disagree on something as big as your most important values in relation to humanity, then I think you would possibly be more likely to have more disagreements that are fundamental in nature, which may not be a big problem in the beginning, but may become a big problem later on.

I have also found it useful as a way to gauge another persons maturity. Some people can keep political discussions open minded and truly consider other views and their implications and ask pertinent questions on that basis, and others can't. Some people can discuss these matters incredibly logically, even if they feel strongly about them, in a respectful and civilized manner without resorting to unsavoury tactics such as insults, name calling or invalidation and others cannot. I think those are important things to take note of, because they clearly demonstrate the amount of respect this person has for other people, and they also show their discussion and conflict resolution skills, which are two very important factors in any relationship.