Which, depending upon one’s definition, could be accurate.
For what it’s worth, I’d count thisas Christian persecution for sure.
Bricker, so far, everyone has ignored der trihs’ post in this thread. Is that sufficient, or should people be actively condemning him for his tripe?
Frankly, I can’t be buggered to get into it with him again; I got burnt out on that years ago. I suspect that’s true of others as well. I ignore it. Would you see that as evidence of my support for his posts?
In Bricker’s defense, engaging **Shodan **is equally pointless, but people have done just that in this thread. Liberal posters quietly let Der Trihs’s posts slide, while taking time to attack Shodan’s. Conservative posters do the opposite, generally letting idiocy on their side go by unchallenged while attacking liberal morons. But since there’re more liberals here, the net result is that “bash the conservative” threads are commonplace, whereas “bash the liberal” threads are rare.
If you mean Der Trihs’ post #87, BrainGlutton partly quoted and commented in #101.
Stop setting a tone of persecution, BrainGlutton!
This presumes that bashable conduct by liberals and conservatives is occurs with equal frequency, and the only variable is more liberals than conservatives.
Perhaps that’s because defending people attacked for their gender, orientation or race is an obvious and clear good while defending a religion used by some to justify that same racism, sexism and homophobia is slightly greyer ethically.
Christianity is a lifestyle choice. And thus, bitch-aboutable.
I feel fairly confident stating that if you can write a decent Tolkien parody, can expound at length on arcane miscellanea of 14th century underwear knitting, know a good dick joke or simply aren’t behaving like a jerk, then nobody on this here forum will give the first lonely fuck about your religion. We’ll welcome you with open arms as one of us, one of us, one of us.
You do have to pay for the first five rounds though. Union rules.
Shouldn’t this thread be combined with the “why do people make up stories about Satanic abuse” thread?
You get that he is calling for such a threshold to be implemented, yes? Such a call is not necessary if “sufficiently severe harm” were ALREADY the threshold. The author doesn’t say that sufficiently severe harm is currently the standard – he is proposing that we adopt it as the standard henceforth.
Good idea - then we could do away with all this “tone” nonsense.
I’m a Christian and I don’t feel victimized at all. In other parts of the world many indeed are. Lots of people here make fun of Christians. I’d rather they didn’t but I’m not losing any sleep over it.
Not that I think that they are “tripe”, but I get condemned for my opinions all the time. Which makes me “persecuted” too by Bricker’s standards.
So, when Bob Jones, Jr. (son of the founder of Bob Jones University) called Catholicism “a satanic counterfeit, an ecclesiastic tyranny over the souls of men” he was persecuting Catholics? When he stated that all Popes were "demon-possessed, " was he persecuting Catholics?
That type of language is common in fundamentalist circles (someone is buying all those Chick tracts). According to the Bricker standard, would we then say that fundamentalists are persecuting Catholics?
Scorecard! Scorecard! You can’t tell who’s persecutin’ who widdout a scorecard!
Your post is a perfect example. You’re taking traditional morality and calling it bigotry.
Just a decade or so ago, very few homosexuals were calling for the “right” to get married. Instead, they said, “Just leave us alone, and let us do what we want in the privacy of our bedrooms.” But now they no longer want to be left alone. They want to force their beliefs on everybody else by using the power of the government.
If same-sex marriage were treated in the same way that first-cousin marriage is treated, that would be one thing. First-cousin marriage is illegal in approximately half the nation. You don’t see anybody going around holding rallies and calling for boycotts where it’s illegal, nor calling opponents of first-cousin marriage “bigots.” But homosexuals aren’t satisfied with something like that–they want to tear down morality and thousands of years of tradition.
Thus we see that homosexuals aren’t interested in equal rights at all–what they really want is special rights. They want to stifle free speech and free exercise of religion.
Why do you get to impose your morality on me but I can’t impose mine on you?
That’s not a contradiction, if a moral tradition institutionalizes bigotry. The mere fact that a moral tradition is old certainly shouldn’t spare it from analysis and commentary.
And, brace yourself, it turns out that even long before that, there were people who said “hey,wait a sec, I’m not receiving equal treatment under the law, and for a bad reason.” Gay marriage is no more “forced” on anyone than interracial marriage, or women voting. Can you demonstrate what is being “forced” on you?
So? If first-cousin marriage proponents want to take grassroots political action and hold rallies and pursue redress in the courts, let them.
I’m afraid I must call “bullshit” on this claim, but I invite you to present any and all evidence you have to bolster your position.
“Traditional morality” in this case is perfectly synonymous with bigotry. “Traditional” christian morality with regards to homosexuality was that homosexuals deserved to be persecuted; that they were an abomination and a blight on society. Guess what: it’s neither persecution to push back against a bigoted moral system nor persecution to call those who support that system bigoted. Because lemme tell ya - if that’s your big example of “persecution”, then Christians ain’t got shit on homosexuals. I have nothing against Christians in general. My ire is exclusively aimed at those Christians who intend to dehumanize, violate the rights of, and generally be bigots towards homosexuals. This isn’t me hating Christians, it’s me hating bigots who personally strive to make my life and the life of my friends worse.
Yes, things have changed. It’s gone from “homosexuality is a disgusting perversion that should not be tolerated” to “homosexuality is a normal expression of human sexuality”. And given the latter position, it makes sense for homosexuals to be given the right to marry. In fact, it makes no sense at all to withhold it. And for those of us who see marriage as a basic civil right, your position is akin to making interracial marriage illegal.
“Morality and thousands of years of tradition”. Do you have any idea how tone-deaf and dumb that sounds? Seriously, the only “morality” that homosexuals are interested in tearing down is the immoral system in which they are considered abominations! You know, the disgustingly immoral pronouncements of the bible. And even then you have people like the Log Cabin Republicans.
A lot of Christians get this. They learn to cherry-pick, taking the good and rejecting the bad. Those who don’t are bigots, but more importantly terrible people. And they deserve the shit they’re getting. Not that it ever amounts to anything remotely close to persecution - the worst you’ll get are some stern words in the media if you say things in public which are disgusting and bigoted, and maybe a few customers who’d rather not support your business because they disagree with your viewpoint (although being anti-gay is apparently a great business strategy these days, just ask Chik-Fil-A).
And as for thousands of years of tradition… Dude, marriage in biblical times was a transfer of property. Marriage has changed drastically over time, multiple times throughout history. Your appeal to tradition is fallacious and would be wrong even if it wasn’t. I just love this whole post. “We’re not persecuting them any more, and now they’ve gotten all uppity and want rights!”
And your analogy is just hilariously off-base. You know what’s special about first-cousin marriage? Incest. A social taboo that’s not going anywhere due to its coercive nature and biological detriment. Interracial marriage is a much more accurate analogy, but I don’t think you’ll reach for that one - it draws some very uncomfortable parallels.
The right to marry who you love is not a special right; you’ll find that virtually every heterosexual on the planet has that right. And please don’t show up with that “they can also marry whoever of the opposite sex they want” argument; it’s about as meaningful as saying that the clause in planet express’s contract that female employees have to pose naked when requested is in the contracts of the men and the women and therefore applies equally.
No, nobody is stifling free speech. There is no censorship going on. You are still free as ever to practice your religion. It’s just that in some places, if you want to run a business, you’re not allowed to follow certain tenets, a simple common-law solution to the problem of discrimination that was used to great effect in the Civil Rights movement and for which there should be no special treatment just because your religion says so. Much like how in some places, if you want to perform human sacrifices, you’re still not allowed to, no matter how central it is to your beliefs. Welcome to life in a secular society that prides itself in not oppressing minority groups. I feel absolutely no sympathy for your persecution complex. “WAAAAH I’M NOT ALLOWED TO WITHHOLD RIGHTS FROM PEOPLE OR DISCRIMINATE AGAINST THEM IN MY BUSINESS; I’M BEING PERSECUTED!” :rolleyes: You want persecution? Check out what Christians did to homosexuals and atheists and virtually anyone else who didn’t agree with them for the last 2000-odd years. That’s persecution.