Though that was both class b1 and c felonies, not exactly sure what that means, but I feel a bit differently about say a 21 year old and a 17 year old, and a 57 year old with a 13 year old.
So yeah, this is something that I was not really aware of. I’m not much happier about the state of humanity now that I am, but there is optimism in that there are those who are working to stop it.
Back to the thread, should someone ask me to make a cake for a 57 year old and a minor, I would refuse, and goad them into suing me, specifically to raise awareness of this issue. The few who cried bigot at me, I would happily shrug off, and just know that they have outed themselves as child rape enablers.
But, as I said, to be a martyr, you have to be willing to accept the punishment that society offers you for not following the rules that you feel are unjust.
I suppose my mind was distinguishing bigotry in common parlance from religious bigotry, which draws more on the formal definition, intolerance and stubbornness, than the common definition involving hatred or specific content.
I was thinking more, here’s some religious person who won’t bake a wedding cake for a teen and an adult because their religion tells them that teenagers shouldn’t have sex at all.
Pre and extra marital sex are at least touched up on in the bible. AFAIK, age never is mentioned.
That is a morality that is based on our society and understanding that teenagers are not ready to be parents. It is a secular distaste, not a religious one.
Upon further reflection, this fits well with Velocity’s original example of a man selectively quoting Corinthians 6:9-11. (As GreenWyvern says, this speech should not be taken out of context; it was about people in the Christian community)
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
I don’t think merely quoting scripture or indicating that you agree with it necessarily indicates hatred towards any of the above groups. But Velocity seemed to think it would be labelled as bigotry, and I tend to agree.
But that is because he was preaching to a group of those groups. He was saying, “I know you’ve all done fucked up, but that’s okay, Jesus got you.”
He was specifically saying that he did not hate them for their sins.
I tend to disagree. If you are reading it in church to a church crowd, and you read the whole passage, then no, not bigotry, and in fact, it is meant to be inclusive.
If you just quote the "Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. " part out of context, then you chose to do so, and very likely out of a sense of bigotry.
Yeah, but if you read the whole passage, 1 Corinthians 6, he goes on to imply that it is a sin against God for a person who has accepted Christ into their body to subject that body to such acts.
So a person in some church gets up on stage and, quoting that passage, argues that the church should expel non-celibate homosexuals or face a fate similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. Wouldn’t you say that person is a bigot?
But I can make up any ol thing and say it’s due to religious belief. People can and often do hold contradictory religious beliefs. People really do believe the Bible says things that it doesn’t. It could be as simple as a pastor telling his flock that child marriage is an affront to Christian principles, because science and statistics.
My favorite religions are made up out of whole cloth. I love me some neopaganism, some Discordianism, some Church of the Subgenius.
Since I personally believe that all religions involve people who “made up any ol thing,” that’s not a helpful way to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate religious claims. Being able to quote a Bible verse in support of a position grants that position exactly zero extra credibility.
Edit: that said, it sounds like Benjamin Smith wasn’t quite a mass murderer. He shot at 20 people, hit 11, killed 2. Or 21, 12, and 3, if you count shooting himself twice in the head then once in the heart. Horrific person, lousy shot.
Going back to that Bible verse, the meaning and translation is not straightforward, though many people today like to believe it is.
The words that are being translated as “homosexuals” and “sodomites” in the translation that @Max_S is using are μαλακοί and ἀρσενοκοῖται in the original.
But it is a big mistake to fit these modern meanings to the words.
Here’s the commentary by highly respected biblical scholar David Bentley Hart:
μαλακοί (malakoi). A man who is malakos is either “soft”—in any number of opprobrious senses: self-indulgent, dainty, cowardly, luxuriant, morally or physically weak—or “gentle”—in various largely benign senses: delicate, mild, congenial.
Some translators of the New Testament take it here to mean the passive partner in male homoerotic acts, but that is an unwarranted supposition.
ἀρσενοκοῖται (arsenokoitai). Precisely what an arsenokoitēs is has long been a matter of speculation and argument. Literally, it means a man who “beds”—that is, “couples with”—“males.” But there is no evidence of its use before Paul’s text. There is one known instance in the sixth century AD of penance being prescribed for a man who commits arsenokoiteia upon his wife (sodomy, presumably), but that does not tell us with certainty how the word was used in the first century (if indeed it was used by anyone before Paul).
It would not mean “homosexual” in the modern sense of a person of a specific erotic disposition, for the simple reason that the ancient world possessed no comparable concept of a specifically homoerotic sexual identity; it would refer to a particular sexual behavior, but we cannot say exactly which one.
The Clementine Vulgate interprets the word arsenokoitai as referring to users of male concubines; Luther’s German Bible interprets it as referring to paedophiles; and a great many versions of the New Testament interpret it as meaning “sodomites.” My guess at the proper connotation of the word is based simply upon the reality that in the first century the most common and readily available form of male homoerotic sexual activity was a master’s or patron’s exploitation of young male slaves.
To imagine that the 1st century verse relates in any clear way to modern society and modern sexual concepts is a major error.
I just finished reading it now, and I find myself agreeing with the court. So Creativity is a religion, and being stubbornly intolerant of it is bigotry. It is also a bigoted religion, since it directly teaches white supremacism.
Yeah, they are. But at the same time, their church is a private club, and is allowed to discriminate on those they choose to associate with.
When they leave the confines of that club, then they don’t get to be quite as picky about who they include in their public accommodation.
Fair enough, the whole thing is made up fiction in the first place. So all you are really saying there is that even being able to quote a bible verse that supports your position doesn’t actually give you any justification.
Sure, and if you take inspiration from those on how to live yourself a better life, all the better.
While I agree, those who feel that we should have the Ten Commandments in court rooms and otherwise elevate Christianity to a state religion would generally not.
It’s translated as “men who have sex with men” in the NIV, which you cited before, so I assume you find some credibility in that translation. My online NIV source gives a footnote:
“The words men who have sex with men translate two Greek words that refer to the passive and active participants in homosexual acts.”
I’ve always been bad with Greek, so I wouldn’t know the straight dope on this.
Nevertheless, even a mistaken interpretation of a poorly translated Bible counts as genuine religious belief.
It just makes the example a little more realistic, to frame the debate.
That was my point. I know it’s cliché, but it’s realistic for a bigot to love the sinner and hate the sin. And so I think a definition of bigotry which is restricted to hateful intolerance is too narrow for this debate - reliance on such a definition gives rise to the original post of this topic.
Which reminds me. @Velocity is still the only member to participate in this thread who seems to question whether his original example constitutes bigotry. We’ve been kind of arguing about the definition of bigotry, but as far as the central question goes, I suggest the existence of unanimous agreement:
Resolved, that genuine religious belief is not incompatible with bigotry.
I don’t think it’s possible to hate the sin without being at least contemptuous of the one committing it.
I think I can agree with that.
Now, if we want to dig deep into pedantry, bigotry is any intolerance of another’s opinion. So, you would be a bigot if you disagreed with child marriage. You would be a bigot if you disagreed with Dahmer’s diet.
But there are some things that society should not tolerate, because those things are bad for society, or are fundamentally bad for the victims of the intolerable actions.
A case may be made for any of those. I think we can come up with a whole lot of reasons why being “bigotted” against child rapists and cannibals is acceptable and good, without having to open a bible or invoke a religious belief.
Harder is the case to be made as to how consenting adults choose to arrange their lives and finances, without subjecting them to your own subjective beliefs.
What does “stubbornly intolerant” even mean? Is the opposite of being a bigot being a person who eventually caves in to put up with literally anything?