4grace4 - if nothing else, from the responses you have recieved, you will have learned a valuable journalistic lesson - writing is a seriously precise form of communcation, and misunderstanding by readers is to be expected, it simply goes with the territory.
Therefore, you should always be willing to accept that misunderstanding is often down to your initial communication, at least as much, if not more, than the reader, and their following response. If you adopt that approach with everyone except the obviously provocative and nasty responses you receive, it will stand you in good stead.
Opinion pieces are of course, just that, opinions, and there is nothing wrong with inviting a variety of thoughts to assess alongside your own.
But if people misunderstand your initial request, then you have to give them the benefit of the doubt becuase that is good manners, and it will ensure future co-operation.
Alienating your readership by upbrading your perception of their failure to understand you is the province of a few very very few experienced high profile writers who can do this with wit and high intelligence.
Hope this has been of use.