As much as people like to parrot “ACAB” and consider their job done, most people– especially people raised with evangelical values– have not done the work of unlearning legalism and understanding morality through the lens of actual harm.

To these people “legal” equals moral and good and “illegal” equals immoral and bad. They’re synonyms in their mind.

Which is why you can sometimes break their brains by reminding them that some fans write gay fanfiction in countries where being gay is very much still illegal.