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>For literally anyone sane, any of those reasons individually would be totally disqualifying in a candidate

Sorry, but this is not how it works.

People have fear, prejudice and many other things that worry them. Their fear may or may not be baseless but it is there and if you are sane and more or less logical you have to take it into account.

When people fear or do not understand something they tend to turn to someone who offers them a solution.

Some times it's a doctor, some times it's a drug dealer. Why? Well, many reasons (I'll excuse myself and won't start listing those because you can write a few books about each of them)

You want people to stop turning to mafia\drug dealers or some kind of charlatans for help? You have to do something about their fears.

This is sane and logical and any therapist will tell you something similar.

Yes, it might be hard to accept, but it is quite possible you have to fix this shit to be able to fix the "their rights are literally being stripped away" part.

edit: misprints