QUICKLY PUT DOWN AFTER LIKE 200 YEARS

So this is what's going on over at Tea Party Nation. Mary Baker of "Conservative Moms for America" – Seriously, is there anything that makes you want to take someone seriously less than when they begin any statement that isn't about parenting a child (and a lot of statements that are) by identifying themselves as a mother? – shares some deeply thought provoking ideas about why the gays are like the KKK:

When white supremacy tried to make a mark in American history it was viciously attacked quickly put down by the people of our nation . But Gay Supremacy is becoming a monster that carries greater evils than white supremacy ever did. White Supremacy was focused on how a group of people felt about another group of people. They created various barriers for those they hated and their views about their superiority to others provided the frame work for the citizens of this nation to search their hearts and understand that God has created every person in His image. However Gay Supremacy's hate reaches much farther than a specific group of people. Their is no common ground that can be reached. Their is no searching of the heart or consideration of God's principles. Their hate is generated only by self centeredness and hate for anyone who disagrees with them.

Any person who disagrees with their evil beliefs will be viciously attacked and destroyed. I could disagree with the beliefs of white supremacist and still hold to Biblical views about life, marriage and sexuality. Many people in America fought against their own kind in order to rid us of this hateful group but Gay supremacist have bullied every sector of our nation and now sit as the giant bully against all Americans who disagree with their radical agenda. Christians are not bigots because we don't embrace immoral lifestyles. Currently gay supremacist point their anguish at Christians but anyone who stand opposed to the Gay supremacist is game for utter annihilation.
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Our state government must now take the lead in protecting the religious freedoms and right of expression of the citizens of their state from this new enemy the Gay Supremacist.

I struggle to think of anything more historically ignorant and offensive that I have read.

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Oh, let's check out the first comment!

Both Conservatism and Christianity has no problem with the right to live the gay lifestyle, in accordance with religious freedom which all Christian churches promote, so long as the gay lifestyle is not sanctioned by the State.

You raise an interesting point about "White Supremacy vs.
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Gay Supremacy" – driving people out of corporations is just like the KKK driving black people out of town, and liberal bullying is just like KKK cross-burning.

Just like White Supremacism claimed "States' Rights" support their actions, "Gay Supremacism" claims "Equal Rights" support their actions.

As conservatives, we must fight both White Supremacism and "Gay Supremacism" and support freedom for all races and sexual orientations.

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Yep, that's actually worse. Because the only way you can top the people who write for Tea Party Nation is by turning to the people whose days are spent posting comments on Tea Party Nation. Just remember, the Tea Party and the Republican Party are very different. No overlap whatsoever.

77 thoughts on “QUICKLY PUT DOWN AFTER LIKE 200 YEARS”

  • Bad analogy, I agree. But I'm not that thrilled about the case they refer to. Interested folks should wander over to the Dish for a nuanced discussion of the topic. I agree with Andrew on this one.

  • Well, if the religious right had been willing to back adequate anti-discrimination legislation, that covered both religion and sexual orientation the whole Firefox situation would have been a non-starter. But they didn't back it,they didn't amend legislation to cover religion and now it is blowing back on them.
    I don't agree with his sacking, but I can't muster much sympathy for him either.

  • "wander over to the Dish"

    Um, no. Sullivan is being his usual click-baiting contrarian-for-its-own-sake asshole.

    In 2014, big corporations like Mozilla suffer when the public perceives them to hold outdated views. Eich, despite having reprehensible, 19th century politics, was smart enough to know that having alienated gays and pro-gay marriage types (who are, indeed, dominant in the highly educated world of American technology) he was basically now just a big stinking turd at the top of the ladder. He did the reasonable thing (and morally correct one, natch!) by stepping down.

    This isn't "reverse racism" or "reverse gayism" or what have you, it's how a capitalist society works. People vote with their dollars so to speak, and a looming boycott of a bigotted CEO's company is a perfectly valid response. (Free speech begets — wait for it — more free speech!)

    Shorter version: You have a right to say what you want, give money to the KKK, etc. You do not have a right to be a) gainfully employed for holding such abhorrent views or b) given your own personal soap-box from which to spout these views (e.g., the Duck Dynasty guy).

    As usual, Andrew's site is dying and he's desperate for clicks, so he's rather conveniently inserted himself into this when, of course, nobody asked him to.

  • @wet: "You do not have a right to be a) gainfully employed for holding such abhorrent views"

    So in other words, are you saying that if you had a conservative Christian on staff who 9-5 went about their job in a professional manner, met or exceeded their KPIs, got on with the staff. However, if you found out that they had conservative views you'd fire them?

  • "Conservative views" is an interesting formulation for anti-gay bigotry. In my totally average company, if you were to express the notion that black people or mixed race couples should't be allowed to marry, you'd be shit-canned, but somehow it should still be socially acceptable to think of gays as less than fully human because Jesus. Packaging this odious shit up as"conservative views" plays into their framing.

  • c u n d gulag says:

    Asking for equality before the law, is NOT trying for supremacy.

    This, over 140 years since his death, still applies:
    John Stuart Mill – "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

  • I really get pissed off when people start out their hectoring/bullying/ignorant screed with "I'm a mom" (disclaimer: I am also a mom). Ability to sexually reproduce does not equal excellence and expertise in all areas of life, and it's instantly obvious when these blowhards start braying that they don't have experience or excellence in much of anything, including education.

  • Regardless of underlying subject matter, that butchery of the English language was legitimately hard to read.

  • It's also precious how she notes that white supremacy was couched in "states' rights," but begs state governments to stop protecting gay rights.

  • So in other words, are you saying that if you had a conservative Christian on staff who 9-5 went about their job in a professional manner, met or exceeded their KPIs, got on with the staff. However, if you found out that they had conservative views you'd fire them?

    If that person is going to church every Sunday and tithing, that's their own business whether the boss knows about it or not.

    If that person is giving money to causes that advocate for putting gays back in the closet, or for racial purity as sanctioned by the Christianity of the antebellum United States, or misogyny as still advocated by many right-wingers today, it would depend on the person's position and whether that shit had gotten on to the company's brand.

    If I'm a paralegal working for an attorney who does a lot of immigration advocacy in a heavily Hispanic area, and I give money to an organization that opposes the DREAM Act (note: I wouldn't), then my attorney would rightfully question my ability to do my job fairly and competently.

    In that vein, Theodore Beale was not kicked out of SFWA for his views, but because he got his shit on SFWA's brand by posting his nasty comments about N.K. Jemison and two Tor editors on to SFWA's twitter stream, thus getting his shit on SFWA's brand. SFWA and its membership had every right to be concerned about that. I belong to two professional paralegal organizations, and believe me, I wouldn't expect to belong to them for very much longer if I went around making racist and sexist comments about attorneys, judges, and my fellow paralegals.

    Brendan Eich may very well have been a competent CEO who would not have attempted to take away the gains that the LGBT people working for Mozilla had realized–their same-sex partner ship benefits, et al. But the employees had the right to question whether he would, and the Mozilla board as well as the other organizations that deal with Mozilla products and the Mozilla brand had the right to question whether the company was going to move in the direction of Westboro Baptist Church.

  • duquesne_pdx says:

    I really hope that those blocks were entirely [sic].

    As far as Eich getting canned/resigning goes, he has a perfect right to express whatever views he wants to express, verbally or by donating money to political causes. However, he — and everyone getting all bent out of shape about the situation — has to realize that free speech comes with consequences.

    If you own or run a business and you say or do something that becomes public that some people find abhorrent, you should expect that those people will probably find some other business to frequent. If I stand up in my job and spew racist or sexist idiocy, I get to have a talk with HR and start updating my resume. When employees of Mozilla and fellow boardmembers started resigning, it was a pretty good sign that his tenure was going to be brief, however well qualified he was for the job. When the number of people using Firefox took a plunge because of his donation, well, we'll expect your resignation from the board by morning.

  • Like I said in the previous thread:

    "First they said soda foundtains had to serve Black people- and I did nothing, because I wasn't a racist.

    Then they said the LDS Church would lose its tax-exempt status if they didn't admit Blacks as full members- and I did nothing, because I wasn't a Mormon.

    And now, when they say bakers have to serve cakes to homosexuals… OH GOD, WHO WILL STAND WITH ME? There is no one left!"

    Some super-rich guy quit his job because people don't like him. WHOAH! That's a serious tragedy! I mean, if a gay couple wants a cake, that's the end of the fucking world according to Xynzee. That's like asking a kosher deli to serve pork! But heaven forbid that a Christian should have to step out of the spotlight just because people don't like him.

    What a fucking martyr complex these people have.

  • My favorite is the phrase "radical agenda."

    Marrying someone you love, being able to visit a loved one at the hospital, protecting shared property, and not losing one's job because of who you love is radical?

    ….and all of the above directly affects that mom's life 0 minutes in a 24 hour day

  • Gordon Guano says:

    Maybe by "gay supremacy" they're talking about the positive stereotypes. They're just bothered by the fact that gays are limited to being portrayed as quip machines with great taste in clothing and interior design*. Not portraying gays as dumb narcissists is the new blackface, y'all**.

    Ok, I can't keep a straight face anymore.

    *To be fair, this does explain the career of a second rate talent like Dame Andrew. Or the success of the diarrhea torrent that is Glee.

    **A comic conceit exploited by Patton Oswalt.

  • @Anon, to hear right-wingers tell it, you would think that LGBT people are yanking random people off the street and shrieking, "I am the Gaystapo and you must bake me a CAAAAAAAKE!!!!!!!ONE!!!!" rather than going to licensed bakeries that ADVERTISE cake baking as a paid service. I'm picturing that scenario as a political cartoon and it is HILARIOUS. I wish I could draw so I could share it.

  • Let me also add that the profound Nihilism of so much of modern Christianity is on show here.

    We want legal protection for love. Christians like Xynzee shoot back with the argument that what *really* deserves legal protection is hate.

    Why do you even have to explain to him what's wrong with that? Simple:

    *These people simply do not know the difference between love and hate.*

    More broadly, that's why these Christians keep trying to reduce sex to animal rutting. Since the idea of love is utterly foreign to them, they can't understand why people would want contraception, or why gays would want to express their love sexually. What kind of sex do they understand? A Quiverfull family cranking out ten kids. To a nihilist Christian, humans are just animals, and sex is just a way to make more animals.

  • Sorry about the flood of comments, but I've had a number of thoughts about this article, and they seem to have occurred in series rather than in parallel.

    In a way, Conservative Mom is half right. Her argument that bigoted homophobes are being bullied, in that they can no longer hold high-profile positions in some areas of business without their backward views hurting their company, has some truth to it. To the extent that's "bullying," then they are being bullied. But this kind of "bullying" is awesome.

    A big part of defeating hate and ignorance in society is making such hate and ignorance socially unacceptable. You can't force people to change their hateful views, but you can create social consequences to expressing them, like Stetson Kennedy did back in the 1940s with the KKK. If a school of thought looks stupid and socially unacceptable, fewer people will join it. Now we're to the point where if a CEO were to express the opinion that black people deserve fewer rights than white people, the CEO's company would instantly be boycotted by a large swath of Americans; the only question would be whether he would be shitcanned (and go to work at Fox News) before or after the boycott took effect. Is that bullying? Call it what you want, but it's a good thing, and it's encouraging that the same is happening with regard to gay rights.

    Of course, Conservative Mom is shrill and garbled, and her attempt to equate gay rights with white supremacy is entirely bonkers. But her point that it's becoming unacceptable to be an outspoken homophobe in the business world is pretty accurate, albeit leading to the opposite conclusion that she tries to draw.

  • @Sarah: "But the employees had the right to question whether he would, and the Mozilla board as well as the other organizations that deal with Mozilla products and the Mozilla brand had the right to question whether the company was going to move in the direction of Westboro Baptist Church."

    That final sentence was the weak point of a fairly well thought out argument, as it reads as the equivalent slippery slope "that gay marriage will lead to ped ophelia".

    In Eich's case he gave to a cause that was both the status quo and had a majority support of Californians *at the time*. Prop-8 did pass. I don't believe anyone imagined how feral the discourse would become.

    I am unfamiliar with the Beale case you mention. When you say "nasty" am I right to assume you mean far worse than say "Person A is a jerk!" or "I vociferously disagree that illegals should be allowed to get amnesty!"

    If the person is saying lude, and worse, things in a public professionally related forum, then I can see why disciplinary action would be required. Especially if the person is in a prominent position of an organisation at the time.

    Now you raise an interesting point. Could my comments in a forum such as this come back to bite me? Or are we entering a time when any political discourse to the contrary of what is popular going to be used against someone at some point later? Particularly where work is concerned. Would a throw away comment, or one that is taken out of context online be enough to get me sacked? I could see if I was posting very hostile comments, course language, threats, etc. that could possibly be used against me.

    But for my saying in this forum, I have an opinion and I disagree and you may not like it! If I have an online argument with someone who has a differing opinion with me, can that be used against me?

    If say at some point in the future I by chance came to work for you, and you found out I was Xynzee would you have me fired? Just because I hold the beliefs that differ from yours. Yet in no way impacts upon how I do my work? Though for me it does impact my work as I strongly believe I bring glory to God by working to the best of the abilities that I have been given.

    If this is where political and social discourse are going, then that is a very bad future indeed.

  • Amid redressing many other knowledge deficits, I think Mary Barker needs to learn what the word 'supremacy' means.

    I live in a jurisdiction that provides equal protection* against workplace discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and religion & belief. This has existed since 2003.

    I'm not sure that this would have helped Eich much, even if he had been fired. The case law here is still emerging, but something that the courts have obviously been doing is scoping what constitutes religious practice. Depending on how any religious discrimination law was framed, I think it may have been quite difficult to suggest that support, which was not required by any particular religious denomination, for a proposition that was not, on the face of it, religious, was religious.

    Had the court or tribunal accepted that it was religious, it would still have allowed Mozilla to argue that dismissing a CEO who was negatively impacting the reputation of the business was nonetheless proportionate. They would almost certainly have led evidence pertaining to the organisation's concerns about the work environment of LGB employees. I think there is a qualitative difference between e.g. attending a prayer vigil for opposite-sex marriage or donating to religious marriage-enrichment programmes, and campaigning in political spaces to have the human rights of others curtailed by the state.

    *There are, as with all other grounds of discrimination, exemptions for religious offices; a church (or other religious body) cannot be compelled to ordain women, or to provide any religious service to any group it doesn't want to, even if that group is protected.

  • GunstarGreen says:

    Now I'm not saying that we should ban religion…

    But every time we've had people in this country arguing that their fellow Americans should have fewer rights than they do, or be treated as less than full human beings under the law? There's the Bible, right there in their hands being used as the excuse-de-jour.

    #justsayin'

  • I am unfamiliar with the Beale case you mention. When you say "nasty" am I right to assume you mean far worse than say "Person A is a jerk!" or "I vociferously disagree that illegals should be allowed to get amnesty!"

    Heh. He called N.K. Jemison (and I quote) an "ignorant half-savage." This is an African-American woman who has a master's degree and works in the counseling field, and writes books (that outsell Mr. Beale's) on the side. He also called Teresa Nielsen Hayden, an editor at Tor, a "fat frog."

    Here's the post that kicked off his ouster from SFWA: http://amalelmohtar.com/2013/06/13/calling-for-the-expulsion-of-theodore-beale-from-sfwa/

    In other posts, he has also referred to the Pakistani Taliban and said that they were justified in shooting Malala Yousafzai because female education leads to the downfall of societies.

  • @Sarah: Whoooo EEEE!!

    Point taken.

    The "ignorant half-savage" didn't need any further explanation.

    Though would "fat frog" have raised an eye brow if if had been directed at a male, or more to the point, would he have been inclined to use such an insult if the person was a male?

    Certainly stronger language than: "You're a jerk."Or "I believe there's a strong culture of not working in the inner city."

  • Yeeeesh, you know it's bad when the most offensive part of the anti-gay screed is the GRAMMAR. My monitor is now half-covered in red pen.

  • You know, laughing at stupid people is exactly what the Nazis did. I hope you're all suitably ashamed.

  • "Would a throw away comment, or one that is taken out of context online be enough to get me sacked?"

    There's an additional angle here that I haven't quite seen directly commented upon: those making these sorts of "Could *I* be fired if…" comments are implicitly — though probably unwittingly — imagining themselves as CEO-level executives. Or else they're not understanding that the vast majority of those calling for Eich's resignation would not support the firing of, say, a mid-level engineer, for publicly holding the same views.

    It's another example of the labor/management/executive distinction being totally lost in 21st century discourse.

    In any case, as others have pointed out, this is an example of market forces at work, so those saying "I'm no homophobe, but I find his firing abhorrent on libertarian principle" have a tricky internal balancing act to pull off.

  • Or else they're not understanding that the vast majority of those calling for Eich's resignation would not support the firing of, say, a mid-level engineer, for publicly holding the same views.

    Indeed. Eich was the CTO of the Mozilla Corporation for 9 years, and was one of its co-founders. There is a qualitative difference between being the senior executive officer of a company, and a member of its senior management team.

  • I recall dozens, if not more, boycotts and calls for boycotts and resignations at businesses due to their not being hateful enough. I fail to see how this is meaningfully different.

    Disney and Starbucks certainly haven't gone anywhere. But maybe libertarian right-wingers want government involvement because Noah's flood, or something.

    (Pointing out here that Eich's ouster from Mozilla had no government interference whatsoever, at any level.)

  • Don't forget that money fed to the "Yes on 8" campaign went toward videos showing the most ludicrous caricatures of family values, pushing the "won't somebody think of the CHILDREN?!" button — very much the flavor of Anita Bryant-era ads tying homosexuality to pedophilia and not wanting THEM to be allowed to Teach In Our Schools.

    Anyone who thinks this bigotry is just another equally valid opinion for folks to have should take another look at the ads.

    Being a CEO who donates to Yes on 8, or to the John Birch Society, or to "states' rights" groups who think fair business practices are unconstitutional…yeah, that can get you into trouble. Especially when it creates a hostile work environment. At Mozilla, gay humans work openly at every level. Including the boardroom.

    You have the right to be a bigot; no one is taking that away from you.

    You don't have the right to keep a high visibility "brand ambassador" job when you get caught supporting pro-prejudice legislation. Whether it's sponsored by the Latter-Day Saints or the Aryan Brotherhood, it's discrimination.

    This seems to be no more than a word game to people like Andrew Sullivan (and William Saletan over at Slate). Oh, if you are INTOLERANT of INTOLERANCE, that makes you JUST AS BIGOTED.

    No, my dear idiots, it does not.

  • What a can of worms. The more Eich's situation comes up, the more I try to imagine how I'd feel if he'd resigned over, say, having participated in abortion clinic defense.

    Rights can't apply only to the causes I support, after all.

    And to the people saying "free speech has consequences": well, how many consequences? Co-workers shun you at the water cooler. Don't get promotion. Get fired. Get arrested. Get tortured. At what point do the consequences go from "okay" to "too far"?

    Me, I'd say social consequences are unavoidable, but economic or physical consequences are a step too far because that effectively makes free speech a theoretical right you can't apply.

    But that's for the causes I care about. Do I care as much about Eich? No. I'm glad he's out. And yet, by rights, should he be? It's a mess.

    California law, by the way, which applies in this case, makes it illegal to discriminate against an employee for their political views. If Mozilla squeezed him out, that was illegal by CA law. Their only defense is to insist he resigned. For his health, I guess.

  • @quixote: Speaking as somebody who lives in a heavily right-wing area, if I were to donate to Planned Parenthood or NARAL Pro-Choice America, I would do it anonymously and keep it reeeeeally quiet.

  • It's possible that the political activity was just the public tip of the iceberg, and that there was other stuff going on at work. Most large companies have anti-descrimination or anti-harassment policies in place which he may have run afoul of. Information about internal stuff would not be made public, but if the political stuff was already out there it would make a convienient press release. If he was ramping up his outside activities and has a big ego (and what are the odds of that?) he may have been cutting loose on people within Mozilla.

  • The more Eich's situation comes up, the more I try to imagine how I'd feel if he'd resigned over, say, having participated in abortion clinic defense.

    But those situations aren't the same. Promoting abortion rights doesn't limit any group's rights, unless you insist, against the international consensus, that fetuses are humans. (Even if this were the case, you're not that likely to be employing a bunch of fetuses.) Your anti-choice employees can still go about their business and not have any abortions at all. Your pro-choice employees, on the other hand, can rest somewhat easier in imagining that you won't use your position in the company to constrain the reproductive health elements of their company health insurance.

    I'm struggling to think of a "liberal" campaigning position that, when translated into a generalist employment context, would amount to discrimination against a protected group, including people of faith.

  • @xynzee 8:02
    "In Eich's case he gave to a cause that was both the status quo and had a majority support of Californians *at the time*."

    Prop 8 did not support the status quo. It retroactively nullified marriages which were already recognized by the state, and prevented recognition of new ones. Obviously same-sex married people saw Prop. 8 as a threat to their next-of-kinship, visitation rights and spousal benefits re: their SO. Hell, I'll slippery slope that argument: ANY married people working at Mozilla could rightfully feel that, since the CEO supported Prop. 8, he would be looking to nullify their marriages too, to save the company money, which is his fiduciary duty. Let's just substitute any other minority group into this scenario: CEO of a major corporation donates to a cause to nullify existing and prevent any future marriages involving (black people, Jews, Protestants, Muslims, anarchists, one-legged prostitutes, ad infinitum). When given a chance to explain, he hems & haws, and doesn't refudiate his previous stance. In which of these examples does he not get summarily fired/forced to resign/spend more time with his family? At the very least, "I'm sorry Mr. Eich, but you're not qualified to be a public figurehead for our company, but we do have a place for you here at Mozilla; here's your broom and new pay package".
    And I'm sure slavery had majority support of the population *at the time* too. (in no small part because the minority population had no say at all) That's why equal rights for minorities have to be written into law. It's specifically to prevent the tyranny of the majority.
    bs

  • Sullivan was in the forefront of the "fire Alec Baldwin" brigade. He's got some unresolved issues on this topic.

  • Anyone else here tickled by the fact that Xynzee's latest argument is "Imagine what it would be like if *you* were discriminated against"?

  • How to tell if a Christian homophobe is being persecuted:

    Are gays demanding to be served as customers? PERSECUTION!

    Are gays *not* demanding to be served as customers? OMG- a boycott! That's PERSECUTION TOO!!!!

    There is only one way gays can avoid being the horrible, evil persecutors of the righteous: make an effort to seek out homophobic businesses, so that the homophobes can exercise their inalienable right to deny service to gays.

    We've seen this before: the Christian who brags about acceping gays as charity cases, but refuses to serve them as customers. If gays don't demand those cakes, the homophobes become irrelevant, because they don't have any gays to assert power over.

    A Quaker recently explained that being a conscientious objector means *not joining the Army in the first place.* Don't want to bake cakes for gay weddings? Don't bake wedding cakes.

    But this is why people who are opposed to contraception become pharmacists in the first place. Being a pharmacist means you control other people's (sex) lives. Where's the fun in opposing contraception if you don't get to say "NO!" to dirty sluts? And if the dirty sluts get their contraceptives elsewhere, just whine about how they're persecuting you with a boycott.

  • @Anon, I'm not really bothered by Xynzee all that much. I'm kind of getting the impression that it's not getting fired for anti-LGBT, specifically, that has his knickers in a knot; there are other unpopular viewpoints that can get a person into trouble if they're expressed in the wrong place.

  • A couple of thoughts, late to the party.
    1) The ousting of a CEO by the potential boycotts of the company's products? I believe that is the invisible hand of the market bitch-slapping the anti-equal rights for gays brigade. It is one thing to have a viewpoint, it is another thing to donate money (which is public record) to a group which wants to use it's efforts to take away the rights of others. Free speech? No one arrested him… It's as if the Tea Party types think that Dead Kennedys "California Uber Alles" has come to life. As a C level executive, he should have realized that in taking public stances on political issues, he could face blow-back. I bet if you polled the CEOs of fortune 500 companies on their own personal view of gay marriage, the number against it would be about the same as in the population, however, most of them aren't stupid enough to piss off potential customers.
    2) The "outrage" that comes from *how* it happened is because those that don't think gays should get married don't want to come out and say that. When you don't like the outcome, but can't bitch about the outcome, you bitch about the process. Here's a hint- the next time somebody says "it's not what they said, it's how they *said* it" they really are bitching about what was said.
    3) The "firmly held religious belief" argument is crap. Absolute crap. If a Muslim ever got to be a C-Level executive at say, Ford, and if they gave money to a group that wanted to turn Dearborn, MI, into a city that follows Sharia law, the outrage on the right would be off the charts. Why would it be different? It's a "firm religious belief", as if the rest of us should be subjected to the whims of another person's religion.

  • IS THERE NOT ONE FUCKING COPY EDITOR IN ALL OF TEABAGISTAN?? Jesus. I started wondering if she genuinely thinks "supremacist" is the plural of "supremacy".

  • "Could my comments in a forum such as this come back to bite me?"

    Insofar as they clearly illustrate you to be a barely literate asshole, yes, I'm pretty comfortable with that.

    Your first comment on this thread was unforgivably stupid and fatuous, and you've managed to top yourself in subsequent comments. Just stop, already. You don't know what you're talking about and based on your responses to the other commentators on this thread who have done the yeoman's work of trying to explain the situation to you, you're just willfully ignorant.

    So, your willful stupidity pissed a bunch of people off. Was it good for you, wankstain?

  • Quixote: raises an interesting point. If he had donated to an organisation that supported Tex-arse style anti-abortion legislation would this have raised an eye brow?

    If he had supported one of the more radically violent organisations would certainly be cause for concern. Violence and harassment never have a place in the social discourse.

    And Sarah, yes that's *exactly* what I'm saying.

    I'm not talking about standing up in the work place and say, "I hate (insert group)!" Especially if you direct it at a co-worker(s). Pack your bags Bucky.

    I'm talking about "I disagree!" when the culture says the opposite.

    Should Sarah feel that she has to watch her back for supporting a cause that she believes in? If say she found herself as CEO an internally conservative organisation that provides services to the Catholic Church or something like the current Tex-arse state government and her donations or forum comments came to light. Should she feel compelled to step down lest the company lose business? Particularly if it has had no bearing on her job performance until then.

    And what exactly is the statute of limitations on non-violent political speech?

    If he was making highly offensive and derogatory comments while incumbent in the role that would make sense. But is there now a threat that anyone could be taken to task for a publicly stated opinion at any time?

    In other words, will political speech be like a marijuana conviction going forward? Something that happened years ago, but will serve to keep someone out of work?

    And the reference to the Quaker and being conscientious objector is in context to the State which usually has legal limits set upon it and has the authority to enact laws as it sees fit.

  • I was going to stay out of this one. The reason I ask this is that this *has* happened to me.

    Not for expressing my opinion on this or any other topic, but for being a Christian.

    When I contract I am highly professional, and agnostic. You wouldn’t know I was a Christian in the work place unless you asked, and only after some months. My primary expression of faith in the work place is through my work and work ethic. I also try to pre-vet who I'll work for: tobacco, gambling, porn are my no goes. Otherwise, the only opinions you will get out of me are job related.

    I worked for an organisation for six months where it was all basically praise for my work. Especially where I was able to assist in getting projects through below budget. Got on with most of the team. One of the senior managers was gay and… he thought I was doing fantastic. I got on well with his partner as we’re both whisky snobs.

    Then one Friday drinks he asked what I was doing that weekend. I told him I was running a charity fund raiser for vocational training for Ethiopian street kids. How exciting it is to bring this big project together and knowing that I’m going to make a real difference in kids lives. Which was all, “That’s really cool!” Until I told him I was doing it for my church.

    Then it was all:
    “Oh, you go to church? How do you feel about my partner and I?”
    Not sure I follow?
    “Well, our being gay?”
    I’m cool with it.
    “After I came out I was the happiest I ever was and with M I’m happier. But the churches say this…”
    It’s not my place to judge you. If you two are happy together that’s good. M’s a great guy, and that’s wonderful.

    And so it went. At no point did I express a social, moral, political or religious position on the topic. If he had wanted to discuss my charity work in depth and my motivations for it, I would have. If he had told me about his relationship in general terms (how they met, plans for the future, etc.) I'd have listened.

    However, the morality and politics of his relationship and sexuality are not my business in that context. As far as I am concerned these are not work place topics for discussion.

    On the Monday, the sniping started. Up to then flawless work, suddenly started having “errors” and so on and so forth. This lasted about a month, until I was told I wasn’t needed any more. Uh-huh, riiiight! The reasons I didn’t sue were: a) though obvious, hard to prove. b) small industry, so an unfair dismissal suit would more than likely poison the well. c) the Lord will sort him out and more importantly He had better plans for me.

    I know one of you in particular is cheering that the "Christian got his come up-pence", and I'm guessing a fair portion of the rest you are too.

  • "On the Monday, the sniping started. Up to then flawless work, suddenly started having “errors” and so on and so forth. This lasted about a month, until I was told I wasn’t needed any more. Uh-huh, riiiight! The reasons I didn’t sue were: a) though obvious, hard to prove. b) small industry, so an unfair dismissal suit would more than likely poison the well. c) the Lord will sort him out and more importantly He had better plans for me."

    I believe I remember you once said you express your love and acceptance of gay persons by inviting them to a nice dinner, but under no circumstances did you think their marriage deserved equal protection under the law.

    You expressed the thought very evenly and pleasantly, and you emphasized that you were very pleasant when you spoke to gay people, but you nevertheless thought that way. Based on the above, and my memory, I'd be very willing to believe that undercurrent of base rejection was obvious, no matter how mildly you recount your words in the conversation.

    It's just as possible your work wasn't flawless, but neither was it objectionable, until such a time as your personal views made you personally dislikable, as well.

  • "cheering that the 'Christian got his come up-pence'"

    Not cheering anybody who loses a job. But happy to point out that in the USA you're far more likely to lose a job for admitting to be an atheist than you ever are for being a Christian.

    But enjoy your persecution complex.

  • The reasons I didn’t sue were: a) though obvious, hard to prove. b) small industry, so an unfair dismissal suit would more than likely poison the well. c) the Lord will sort him out and more importantly He had better plans for me.

    You were in a jurisdiction that provided remedy for unfair dismissal to contractors?

    What you experienced would possibly amount to discrimination, although it could be an unfortunate coincidence that your churchgoing became apparent at the same time as deficiencies in your work.

    I don't think I've met an LGB person who wasn't initially wary of 'church folk'. The collective church has been responsible for using its influence to deny LGB people's human rights, poisoning the discourse with lies about gay and bisexual men being pedophiles, operating "ex-gay" services that amount to psychological torture, and propping up laws in other countries that criminalise LGB relationships and sexualities. These activities aren't in the past, and have never been the subject of a collective apology or expression of repentence.

    Christians can respond to this wariness with anger and frustration and pleadings that they, personally, are super nice when they're explaining that gay people are subordinate and should not enjoy the same rights as they do. Or they could try and do something more human.

  • @Xynzee, you're in Australia, right? I'm afraid I don't know for Aussies, but when I said churchgoing Christian in my initial post I was talking about your average schmuck who shows up for Sunday service but also uses artificial contraception (as over 90% of US Catholics do), recognizes the cognitive dissonance inherent in that, and lives with it. (Uh. I should say, for context, that I'm a baptized Catholic. The various Protestants may or may not have their own issues with cognitive dissonance.) There are Christians who are for LGBT rights, and some of them have actually gotten into trouble for doing things like marrying in their churches. When many people talk about "Christian" they think of Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson. Elle also makes a good point when she says that public policy towards LGBT folk hasn't been very nice, with those attitudes being specifically in the name of Christianity, and things like what happened to Mathew Shepard, as well as the appalling apathy during the early years of the AIDS crisis, are still a matter of living memory.

  • It's remarkable to me that Xynzee- and the Christians like him- are so resolutely unable to get it.

    Do we really have to spell it out to them?

    When you say "Group X is so sinful that God once ordered us to kill them," that means group X is your ENEMY. You know- ENEMY. Like in a war- the BAD people that you KILL.

    Having decided that homosexuals are the enemy and worthy of death, these people then whine endlessly about how the homosexuals refuse to be their friends.

    Imagine if someone were in the KKK, and whined that he lost a contract just because the Black guy found out about it. "But I don't think we should lynch Black people *anymore*! God told us to do that a long time ago, and then told us to quit! I wouldn't have told him my views on Black people, except he wrung it out of me after finding out I'm in the KKK!"

    Plenty of Christians would have been able to say, "I'm a Christian, but don't worry, I don't think homosexuality is a sin," and they would have kept the contract. But when Xynzee tells them "I'm a Christian, *and* I think homosexuality is a sin," he whines that the nasty homosexuals hated him for the first part of his statement, not the second.

    Again, adults don't need to have this kind of thing spelled out for them. They know that YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW. If you label someone as the enemy, they can't be your friend.

  • Hey, Xynzee, sorry you lost the job, and assuming your account is correct (which is always risky, even with my self, but you seem honest), it strikes me as unfair. Alas, we live in an imperfect world filled with imperfect people who tend to hold grudges (justified or not) and take out anger and resentments on people who may not be the right ones. We tend to define our '-isms' in ways that make us the real victims, too. It's a human thing. Hope you don't hold a grudge – those things can really hurt you.

  • For the record, at the time (13yrs ago) SSM was not a part of the conversation as it was not on the general social/political radar.

    The person in question was also the one who thought my work was impeccable.

    @Elle: Those are a considerable parts of the reason why I keep my beliefs out of the work place. Even straights can take exception to it as well. I would have to be working with you a very long time in order for you the topic to come up. By that time, most people are, "Oh? OK? You're pretty chilled about it."

    As I've made clear, I knew he was gay, his partner and I would swap whisky notes when he came to Friday drinks. Got on with both of them. Working with him and their relationship didn't phase me in the least. It was a working relationship like any other, and that was that.

    That's why as soon as the "errors" started happening, I started documenting. Some of the things were clumsy, trying to pin a job on me that I hadn't signed off on. As in, "You have all these other signatures, why's mine missing?" If you know where to look, you can pull open the metadata and see when a file was last opened.

    My solicitor said it would be a pyrrhic or moral victory at best. There could be some money, but the long term of having a name on a law suit in a small industry wouldn't be good.

    @Sarah: Unfortunately, the nut jobs of the far right in the US have poisoned the well for Australia too. The rhetoric in the churches that I've attended has softened over the years on the subject. Things are changing, maybe not as others would like. It's also not just Christians that have an issue with this, but a range of faiths. Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims… In the West Christians are just the dominant bug in the petri dish, so we take the most fire.

    The rhetoric does need to be cleared up. Gays in the BSA ≠ "bad" things happening on camping trips. Really people?!
    The best thing for media whores like WBC, is to starve them of oxygen. They'll go away. Watch them and refute them definitely. However, direct your ire at anyone who shows up with a camera for the news. Rupert knows what sells.

    I understand the concern over the "cure therapies" and the damage that they could do. I also know people who have "left" (for lack of a better term) the gay "lifestyle" of their own accord and gotten married to someone of the opposite gender. Are they "happy", ask them. More commonly, others have taken the path of celibacy, for which they have drawn considerable fire.

    No one should fear sacking or censure for holding a differing view to the herd in a peaceable way. If you found yourself working for a Hobby Lobby, your giving to NARAL with your own time/money should have no bearing on your ability to climb the ladder.

    That, as you've observed already has been my point.

    But most of all, can we discuss this in a civil manner? Who knows, both parties could come to a better understanding of each other, and growth and change can happen on all sides. And believe it or not I think we had a civil discussion.

    Peace.

  • Ooo: better clarify the "cure therapy". I'm sceptical of them, and think they probably do more harm than good.

  • @JohnR: I was angry over the whole thing for a bit. However, his actions are not a reflection of the LGBT community as a whole. We're all damaged and imperfect, I just happened to be there.

    But as a result, the reality is I'm far better off where I am now. For my world view God had a better plan for me.

    My cross though is I have to balance conflicting views and sentiments. Will I be able to give glory to God and be obedient, while still honouring my fellow humans who have far, far different values to me?

    Some topics will just be that way.

  • There's something exquisitely appalling about the nominally Christian conservative's ability to claim wide-spread persecution here in the U.S.

    "We are systematically victimized," is the cry. But inasmuch as the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court and most of the federal bench, the state legislatures of a majority of states, and (soon enough) the Senate are all thoroughly dominated by people who are either party to or cowed by your ideology, the claim simply doesn't hold.

    The fanatics and fundamentalists cannot tolerate a single loss, even when their victories are plentiful elsewhere: Abortion is increasingly unavailable as legislators continue to find workarounds to Roe v. Wade. Creationism under the canard "intelligent design" is returning as the preferred mode of biological instruction. Rick Warren delivers the 2008 inauguration, validating his beliefs. Step by step the crusaders and inquisitors are winning the ground war to create a theocracy, all while claiming, loudly, that they are losing to the forces of atheism, secularism, and blasphemy.

    The cry, however, is simply preemptive. Fox News continues to present itself as an alternative to "the mainstream media," but inasmuch as their ratings surpass those of their two competitors in the venue of cable news, such a claim is absurd. Yet in making this claim, they immunize themselves from anyone accusing them of bias, since they can now dismiss that accusation as being, itself, the result of bias.

    Similarly, the insane accusations of "close-mindedness" coming from the right whenever the scientific community declares climate change a self-evident fact, or of "civil rights violations" coming from bigots who have been called out for their viciousness.

    Ignore these claims. Ignore these cries. They are made by evil people who want to exploit your fair-mindedness in order to use your virtues against you. The right in all these cases–cap-and-trade, marital equality, equal pay, evolutionary instruction–is clear and unequivocal. Do not listen, do not "consider the other side"–if we are close-minded, it is because the truth, when discovered, is one-sided, and when fact and faith collide, fact must be deferred to, or barbarism ensues.

    @ xynzee: "No one should fear sacking or censure for holding a differing view to the herd in a peaceable way." This is a fair notion, but the problem with it is that certain "differing views" cannot be peaceably held. If one truly believes that abortion is murder, that view cannot express itself in a live-and-let-live manner. If one truly believes that gays "shall surely be put to death," that's not a peaceable belief.

    My extremely limited view of your situation is that you were mistaken for someone with harmful views, and were unfairly sacked. But I would suggest that the defensiveness–even overreaction–of those who came after you had a lot to do with their experience at the hands–literally–of those who called themselves Christian, and used their faith as a justification for what they did. It can be difficult to distinguish between one Christian and another when the first one is telling you you're going to Hell as he kicks you into a coma.

  • @xynzee: Prop. 8 was NOT supported by a majority of Californians. It was supported by a wafer-thin majority of California VOTERS, who are whiter, richer, more male, more likely to be homeowners, and more conservative than Californians.

  • @xynzee: I'm not cheering that you got your "comeuppance." I think it was weird that your boss asked you about your opinions on gay people, or him and his partner specifically, when you mentioned your church. I know many people who go to church and do charitable work who are totally fine with gays. My carpool-mate goes to a church whose pastor is a lesbian. Obviously I only know your side of this story, but if what you're relating is largely correct, you were discriminated against, and in my view, unfairly. Also, if you were doing good and useful work, it was silly, from a business perspective, to dismiss you, regardless of its legal and/or ethical ramifications.

  • Ye gods. I made the mistake of commenting on an article over on Newsmax's website about Bill O'Reilly appearing on the Today Show to argue with Matt Lauer about Bill's idea of creating a (non-biased!) high school course to make all students learn about how awesome Jesus was.
    I wasted two hours of my life being insulted and accused of supporting policies that I had just finished saying I didn't support. I had a total of three comments that actually addressed what I was saying without being derogatory or outright insulting.
    Some of those people are just fucking nuts.

  • @Xynzee: you're referring to one incident, of one individual, discriminating against you thirteen years ago? Imagine, if you can, the force and frequency of discrimination that particular individual might have experienced at the hands of Christians up to that point. Or during the thirteen years since. No wonder the poor guy was a bit vindictive.

  • @xynzee: @Sarah: "But the employees had the right to question whether he would, and the Mozilla board as well as the other organizations that deal with Mozilla products and the Mozilla brand had the right to question whether the company was going to move in the direction of Westboro Baptist Church." That final sentence was the weak point of a fairly well thought out argument, as it reads as the equivalent slippery slope "that gay marriage will lead to ped ophelia".

    Xynzee: no. Your equivalent slippery slope is a false equivalency. In the case of Eich and Mozilla, Eich supported an initiative to remove rights already granted to same-sex couples; the motivation for this was homophobia with a side of religion, or at best a sufficient comfort with that emotional handicap to tie himself to it for political ends. (What it wasn't: a "sincerely-held religious belief". If you're going to all the trouble to aim biblical religious proscriptions at homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13) but not bankers (Ezekiel 18:13), your real motivation is something other than The Lord's Word.) This legitimately places him on a continuum of religion-inflected homophobia; at one end of this continuum, which can be said to slope precipitously now and then, lies the WBC. Same-sex marriage, as I think and hope you're acknowledging, is not on a continuum, sloping or otherwise, with pedophilia. They have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.

  • Who knows, both parties could come to a better understanding of each other, and growth and change can happen on all sides.

    I think that the mainstream evangelical church's position on same-sex marriage will remain forever inexplicable to me. It appears to have become a fetish that trumps grace, humanity, respect for human rights, and love.

    There is not a whit of evidence that same-sex marriage is harmful in any way to those who enter into it, or to any children of families headed by same-sex couples who are married (or not). There is no credible theory that suggests that enabling same-sex civil marriage will compel any future court to mandate same-sex religious marriage on the grounds of 'equality'. (If this were at all likely then 40+ years of sex discrimination law would probably have yielded a case in which Anglican or Episcopalian churches were compelled to ordain women as bishops.)

    The only possible explanation is that, in an act of monstrous bad faith with democracy, evangelical churches will take any smidgen of theocracy they can get their hands on. This sour, Baal-esque worship of "traditional marriage" hopefully hit its nadir in the form of the WorldVision saga, in which institutional evangelicalism used the lives of children in less developed countries as bargaining chips to prevent even the merest suggestion that Christianity offered a place where married gay people were safe.

  • @Xynzee, RE: cure therapy.

    "Sceptical"? "Probably"?

    I respectfully suggest revisiting this subject, and thinking harder about it. To borrow from one of your comments above, imagine if we Atheists, in our love and compassion for you and your ilk, sent you to camps to be "cured" of your "lifestyle choice".*

    "Cure therapy " is not one of those topics which will "just be that way". It is wrong, a terrible abuse of those subjected to it, and it perpetuates view of homosexuality which is entirely unhelpful to anyone, anywhere, ever.

    Don't mean to pile on, but honestly. That shit is just bananas.

    *not that faith and sexual orientation are in anyway analogous

  • IS THERE NOT ONE FUCKING COPY EDITOR IN ALL OF TEABAGISTAN?? Jesus. I started wondering if she genuinely thinks "supremacist" is the plural of "supremacy".

    Also, she doesn't seem to know the difference between "their" and "there."

  • IS THERE NOT ONE FUCKING COPY EDITOR IN ALL OF TEABAGISTAN?? Jesus. I started wondering if she genuinely thinks "supremacist" is the plural of "supremacy".

    Also, she doesn't seem to know the difference between "their" and "there."

    – I sometimes wonder if the people who post dumb shit like that aren't actually trolls, because the grammar, spelling, etc are so bad. Then I read the comments section of pretty much any newspaper or website, see people butcher the English language ON FACEBOOK WHICH TELLS YOU WHEN SOMETHING IS MISSPELLED and I want to drink and move to Canada or the UK or hide under a rock. We're all doomed.

  • ConcernedCitizen says:

    I'm the 68th commenter, apparently, but I still feel this is worth asking: Ed, was Mary Baker's screed really worth your attention?

  • "Ed, was Mary Baker's screed really worth your attention?"

    If Ed hadn’t pointed out this piece, how would we know that there are gay supremacists? Or that gay supremacists’ hate is generated by hate? Or that white supremacists’ hate was so limited and that they were put down so quickly after citizens searched their hearts? Or that anyone who opposes gay folks is doomed to suffer “utter annihilation?” Or that Mary Baker has readers who take her seriously?

    I don’t go to the teabilly sites or read their blogs, so for me, this was an introduction of sorts. This Mary Baker came up with a ludicrous comparison and really ran with it.

    This pile of crap made me think how great it would be if a high school or junior high teacher could feel secure enough in his or her job to use this piece to teach students about grammar, research, factual support for a thesis, history, propaganda, logical argument and a number of other things. How about this for an assignment: Assuming “bat shit” is two words, describe this piece in one word.

  • @ ConcernedCitizen: Two Below hits it with "Or that Mary Baker has readers who take her seriously?"–While we might regard Ms. Baker's screed as a semi-literate dog's breakfast of ignorance and hate, we have to remember that her views, and those of her supportive readers, are neither fringe nor extreme in much of the country. Nor are her poor language skills an automatic reason for dismissing her–again, they are utterly typical of the many many people who share her views.

    Even if she had written a grammatically flawless piece of Ciceronian eloquence, it would not alter the salient point: She exists, and there are millions of her. That makes her worth our attention.

  • While we might regard Ms. Baker's screed as a semi-literate dog's breakfast of ignorance and hate

    I love it when you talk like that.

    And your point that this subset of society never really goes away, just festers like a malignant tumor and must be dealt with before it poisons us all… We've been chewing on this problem for what – 6,000 years? – and have yet to figure out how to humanely deal with the situation.

    Plague? Castration and slavery? Mass murder? Well, those methods do clear the ground to a certain extent, but too much wheat gets burned with the chaff. [I considered adding the adjective "historic" to "methods," but we have shit like that going on right now.]

    Charles Karelis in The Persistence of Poverty argues that the best way of getting a population subset out of poverty is to give them just enough to raise them above a crucial threshold – a tipping point. Once they no longer see themselves as being poor, people apparently will fight like fiends to never be poor again. The fear of falling kicks in.

    Education could address the poverty of the mind, and emphasize critical thinking skills that anyone can use. Once raised above the threshold of being considered an ignorant dumbass, would anyone want to go back?

    Unfortunately, we also have to contend with laziness, greed, and sociopaths who get a kick out of having power – who aren't happy unless someone else is being crushed.

    And this is when I'm glad alcohol was invented.

  • @Elle: "I think that the mainstream evangelical church's position on same-sex marriage will remain forever inexplicable to me. It appears to have become a fetish that trumps grace, humanity, respect for human rights, and love."

    To answer that unfortunately is not something we could do in a blog exchange. Most of what constitutes "discourse" is just sound bites, and as you can understand these topics do not lend themselves to sound bites. The media and politicians prefer to keep us divided and hiding behind our walls of our respective ghettos because it sells and gets votes.

    It's something to do face to face over several sunday roasts or tofus if you prefer ;) —though a good dhal is probably the better vego option if you are.

    If haven't already, find a one or two evangelicals, and invite them round. Just remember we run the gamut of social skill and sane reasonableness just like any other sub-group ;) Allow both parties to share each other's story. You'll find that the oft quoted Leviticus passage is far more nuanced than our usual shouting matches suggest, combined with the intervening time and more importantly how Jesus' life, death and resurrection have changed the narrative and what it means.

    Though you may never fully grasp the "why" for the opposition, and that's fine. What you and I *can* do is work on the second part, which is to establish grace, humanity, respect and love. At the very least we can knock down some walls, and hopefully we can at least kill off some of the poisonous rhetoric.

    My hope is that by your actions you could save a family some pain and angst in the event they have a child who's gay. Imagine the child not being thrown out of the house and not subjected to the torture of "cure therapy". That or I can take off my rose coloured glasses.

    Peace

  • @Eau: My point wasn't to say, "Oooo! Look at me, and feel sorry for me!"

    It was to illustrate my main point.

    Which is, no one should be discriminated against, nor forced out of a job, for holding differing political, social, religious views, sexual orientation, race, etc. if it has no bearing upon their job! Ever!
    Particularly, if it happens outside of work on the individual's time, money and resources.

    A person has the right under the law to—less so in Australia as it's covered under Common Law rather codified under a BoR—Freedom of (*PEACEFUL*) political speech, association and assembly+. Traditionally that has meant without fear for retaliation against their person from mob or government.

    "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
    -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

    You may refute, me and we can have a vigorous debate. Where a debate is defined by playing the ball (the idea) but not the man.

    However, you may not beat me up, smash my windows in, threaten, harass, or run me out of town because I said something you did not like.

    *That* is the problem of free speech. Someone's going to say something we don't like and sometimes it's really going to piss us off.

    What's the solution?
    That we have everyone arrested that says something that we don't like?
    Should freedom of speech be limited to the popular idea of the herd or the 1% who are financially insulated from any form of retaliation and retribution?

    The best way for me to defend my freedom of speech is to stand up for your freedom of speech even when I found what you said offensive.

    +With the usual generally accepted provisos and exceptions.

  • @Eau: You connected two different thoughts.

    The "Sceptical" should be read: Bull Shit.
    I realised that the way I had constructed an earlier sentence would have read that I believe in "cure therapy" or whatever it's called. I don't.

    The comment to JohnR was in relation to how do I balance two conflicting things between a Holy and Loving God who commands one to love others, but is clear on what is acceptable behaviour, with the needs of others. For a Christian these are not easy.

    Peace

  • If haven't already, find a one or two evangelicals, and invite them round. Just remember we run the gamut of social skill and sane reasonableness just like any other sub-group ;) Allow both parties to share each other's story. You'll find that the oft quoted Leviticus passage is far more nuanced than our usual shouting matches suggest, combined with the intervening time and more importantly how Jesus' life, death and resurrection have changed the narrative and what it means.

    I think I was perhaps unclear.

    I'm not confused about why individual evangelical Christians think that gay sex is a sin. I'm familiar with all of the passages in the OT and NT that are used to justify such a position. Although Biblical inerrancy and literalism isn't actually a very old lens through which to view Christian scripture, it's certainly been taken up with enthusiasm by some sections of the church. An approach that decontextualises specific texts is used to justify proscription of gay sex and therefore (through a fairly startling leap of logic) same-sex marriage in the same way that other texts were used to justify slavery.

    My confusion is more about what institutional evangelicalism is doing. I can see why churches and denominations are holding fast to a theological position that they believe to be correct. I am less clear how this translates to a very visible and public campaign to align the state's actions and legal structures to this theological position. I can see a financial, and even political, benefit in whipping up their members' animus towards gay and lesbian people. I can't see any benefit with regards to their supposed purpose of bringing people to Christ and making disciples of them. Survey data suggests that th

  • Sorry, managed to cut myself off.

    Survey data suggests that anti-LGBT rhetoric is driving young people away from the church, let alone failing to attract any new congregants.

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