Yes, one of the worst and most dangerous places to be is just outside the orthodoxy. This is not a comment about 2021; it is a historical pattern. Whether or not it's worse than being directly opposed to the orthodoxy is something I'd say changes between times and places, but there have definitely been times where its more dangerous to be just outside then full-on opposed. Those who are neither directly opposed, nor just outside, in the vast space remaining outside of those two particular points, quite often do just fine.

This is also a fractal observation, relative to the perspective of "orthodoxy" you are taking at the moment; within the directly opposed group, there is another dangerous place of just outside the opposed group's orthodoxy.

I'd contrast this with the common intuitive belief that by indicating your agreement with the orthodoxy in most other ways, you've somehow built up "credit" with which you can "afford" a deviation. I would observe that model does not match reality very often. There's a few relatively idealistic communities where that may work, but in general that is not how people work.