It’s hateful behavior. Whether that person holds a seething animus in their heart toward gay people really doesn’t matter, and isn’t really knowable anyway.
You can’t hold positions that are hostile to gay people living a full and free life, and say that it doesn’t count because you didn’t utter the magical phrase “I hate gay people.” It’s constructively the same thing, the only difference is that one is more honest than the other.
Well, we try. It’s all part of the service.
Stranger
See here’s the thing about that. Maybe I’m wrong and homosexuality, abortion and smoking pot are all unforgivable sins and you will spend eternity in Hell for it … but that’s between you and God. No my business unless I’m your Pastor.
I really miss when Republicans were libertarians and not Christian Sharians
@puzzlegal, I don’t need to hang out with as many trans people as you do to know it’s not reasonable or practical to restrict restrooms according to birth sex. I don’t support bathroom bills, or most of the other things the Trump admin is doing. I disagree with you on trans policy in three main areas: sports, prisons and shelters, and the assessment of children before medicalisation.
But I think I opened Pandora’s box here. And I suspect everyone believes that because in some ways I sympathise with conservatives or evangelicals, I must agree with them.
No. After experiencing hatred and rejection from supposed liberals, I started really listening to conservatives, and developed sympathy for the devil… or maybe empathy is the better term. I feel like I understand the position of conservative Christians, even though I don’t and can’t share them, because I don’t believe in a god or any religion.
The thing about religion is that most of them set out rules for what is right and wrong. It’s where the majority of people in the world get the specific rules of morality they follow. Progressivism isn’t a religion, but in the last couple of decades, it has developed its own rules of morality, and it’s a universal morality: progressives believe everyone must follow their rules, or they are doing wrong (causing harm).
Collective-you call it “hate”, but it might as well be “sin”. This “hate” has nothing to do with the emotion of the same name: what you mean when you say opposing a particular policy or expressing a particular belief is “hateful” is that you think it is morally wrong to do so.
Inevitably, these progressive moral beliefs sometimes conflict with religious moral beliefs. You believe they are spreading hate, they believe you are promoting sin. Some religious people deal with this conflict by retconning their religion to fit the still-evolving progressive morality. Some become atheist or agnostic. Others choose their religion over progressivism, and in doing so must reject conflicting progressive moral beliefs.
So this is how I see the situation: you think you are just asking for gay and trans people to be left alone and to be able to live their lives in peace, but what you are actually asking is for religious people to give up or substantially change their religion, or to hide their religious beliefs from society. And increasingly, this is not a plea, but a demand, with ‘consequences’ like being fired and blacklisted for refusing.
You don’t want to be forced to change or hide your religion. No one does. Even non-religious people like me don’t want to be silenced and forced to subordinate their conscience to a religion or political philosophy they don’t share: it means forcing them to do wrong or to silently endorse wrongs, in their (our) own view.
Politics is the new religion, the new source of opposing and incompatible beliefs about what is good and right. So the Culture War is akin to a religious war. The US dealt with religious pluralism by banning instituting a state religion, and more or less tolerating their neighbours believing differently to them. Other countries chose religious persecution, legally enforced discrimination on the basis of religion, and religious wars. Maybe that is America’s future now, and I don’t know which side will prevail. I do know that in a civil war, everyone suffers.
I appreciate the thoughtful write-up. And there’s some truth in your understanding of how they think. However, it is fairly easy to knock down your defense of their motivations: religions have thousands of rules that are routinely ignored. There’s as much in the Bible about not using mixed fabrics as there is about not being gay. As far as I know, being trans isn’t even covered. The fact that they chose the gay thing to focus their religion on rather than a thousand other rules means that they’re using their religion to justify their prejudices, not that their prejudices are formed as a logical result of their religion. Forcing your religious beliefs to focus and justify your bigotry doesn’t then justify your bigotry because it’s a matter of faith to you rather than just a normal ethical/political/moral belief. They’re using the (undue) deference we give religious beliefs to excuse run of the mill bigotry, hatred, and xenophobia.
In fact, i know Orthodox Jews who carefully avoid mixing fabrics and also are supportive (not merely “tolerant”) of other human beings who are gay or trans. I know a very traditional Christian couple who are leaders in their small evangelical church who when asked by other members why their church isn’t supporting the bathroom bill on the local ballot replied “we don’t do that”.
These people have not changed or hidden their religion. I met many of them as co-workers, and everyone knew their religion. I am a religious tourist, and have attended religious services with some of these people. They are very traditional services, and these people hold very conservative religious beliefs.
That Christian couple lost their 30 year old daughter to cancer. The funeral service was all about how they were comforted that they knew she was in heaven, with Jesus. Which i found pretty damn uncomfortable, honestly. But they believed it. (And hey, if their religious beliefs are broadly true, i suppose she is, she was extremely devout.)
I think i mentioned in another thread that i attended a wedding between a cis men and a trans man in which they used a contract (Jewish weddings are contractual) from Talmudic times that looks very much like a domestic partnership agreement between two men. Treating people decently is not a novel idea. (They also signed a traditional Jewish wedding contract, “in case we have to deal with a Rabbi who considers me a woman”, but the big fancy one with pretty calligraphy that is framed and displayed in their home is the domestic contract.)
So
No, i really am not doing that. All major world religions are broad enough to support people with a variety of agendas, from monasticism to killing everyone who doesn’t pay lip service to your cult. That’s how they survived and grew in a variety of social and political conditions. You don’t hear a lot of today’s conservative Christians talking a lot about the evils of wealth and how we should all give up all of our possessions. (A topic Jesus spent a lot more time preaching on than sexual morality.) Religious organizations and their members always pick and choose among the broad range of agendas supported by their underlying founding documents and their traditions. Some choose love and others choose hate, and they do that without “giving up or substantially changing their religion”.
One of my favorite things in the Whole Entire World is people who developed such antipathy for Barack Obama that it “drove them into the waiting arms of Donald J. Trump.”
And is it logical to extrapolate from the small number of people who were thoughtless, insensitive, and actively cruel to an individual to the extremely large number of people who would characterize their politics as left-of-center?
Particularly in light of the unabashed, unmitigated cruelty demonstrated by the other side, and to large groups … whole swaths of people, most of whom are “members of a vulnerable population?”
So, was it what ‘drove them there,’ or did it simply appeal to their baser instincts and worst angels which is hugely primal, deeply attractive, and the stuff of demagoguery since time immemorial?
I was just banned from a news-accumulator site, for posting critically of Kirk, on a third party social media that links there.
I may have just been put on “a little list”.
Eventually it may be “Saint Charlie.” Because he was such a great person, just overflowing with the milk of human kindness. Why am I not surprised that it’s Cardinal Dolan laying on the accolades?
You are framing this as a conflict between two inherently equsl systems. Okay.
If the choice is between my fellow citizens having to hide or change their religion, vs informing me publicly that my existence is sinful, and we can only choose one:
Pro-progressive: religious communities can’t project their values onto others, but may bond in private over how sinful society is.
Pro-religion: gay people of any background must be aware of their sinful nature and police their behaviour lest they upset someone else’s deity.
Fuck that.
I’m going to repost part of my long post above, because it was probably too long to get through:
All major world religions are broad enough to support people with a variety of agendas, from monasticism to killing everyone who doesn’t pay lip service to your cult. That’s how they survived and grew in a variety of social and political conditions. You don’t hear a lot of today’s conservative Christians talking a lot about the evils of wealth and how we should all give up all of our possessions. (A topic Jesus spent a lot more time preaching on than sexual morality.) Religious organizations and their members always pick and choose among the broad range of agendas supported by their underlying founding documents and their traditions. Some choose love and others choose hate, and they do that without “giving up or substantially changing their religion”.
Moderating:
You’re correct to say this, and then proceeded to go further on into another long defense of the subject, which is, and has been, increasingly off topic when it’s applied to you or another poster’s personal beliefs, as opposed to Charlie Kirk’s. This is a growing and ongoing hijack, so let’s stop it before it goes any further.
To all, if you want to have another long discussion on religion vs. morality vs. law, please feel free to spin off a new thread. Especially if it involves LQBQT+ please make sure you keep to our rules regarding such.
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
FFS getting shot is the best thing that ever happened to this guy
And the cultist Right in general.
Is anyone else watching the memorial?
I am. Anthropologically.
Moderating:
The above is better suited to the Charlie Kirk Pit thread and even then, it’s noticeably harsh. No more of this in P&E. I and other moderators have given considerable benefit of the doubt due to the profusion of Charlie Kirk threads across different forums, but all posters should please exercise care about the forums they’re posting in. Still no warning this time.
Some thoughts on the memorial spectacle so far ( so far it’s been podcaster opportunists- the larger political opportunists have yet to take the stage)
The paradox of Conservatism: “we need to transform society to keep it from changing.”
The paradox of evangelical Christianity: “please God think of us today after that disaster you sent yesterday.” (Since lead bullets wouldn’t be possible on a planet if God had made all the lead from exploding stars give us a miss)
Rural, suburban; largely affluent White American conservative Christianity. This isn’t the “Elmer Gantry” revival tent religion of the old days, but it’s the same motivation: “America should be ours, but it’s getting away from us, and if we share it in peace we’re betraying our beguiling grifters core convictions.” These people drive big SUVs and live in big McMansions, but they can’t abide a society where anyone lives differently. They can’t hope to create a society sustainable with this for a third of a billion other Americans too, but they feel threatened by any Americans living happily without it.
That said, no Rwanda-style call to action yet, but as noted, the politicians haven’t taken the podium yet
Tulsi Gabbard is leading the politicians in the roster. Yes, the attacks on the other side now begins. Starting with the trans.
And..now, seemingly, restored.
Marco Rubio flogging “we’re the oppressed ones,”
Look at that guy’s ears! He can pump blood into them and cool his core body temperature that way. No worries about climate change there.