Evangelical Alliance: "We aren't homophobic women-haters"

[Lek]

If they don't discriminate, I have no problems with them. I'm not a preacher or a missionary. They may believe in Donald Duck for all I care and that's why I didn't paint them with the broad brush, but made my point about those I dislike pretty clear.

However, if they take center stage to call the rights of certain people into question, whilst quoting their belief, I make it my business to be against that.

My one and only point is, that I don't accept anyone discriminating against a group of people. Whoever does it has earned my contempt, be they religiously or politically motivated.

Amen. My point is just because someone is an evangelical christian doesn't mean that he discriminates against homosexuals or women. Believing one thing is not necessarily discriminating. Furthermore, there are many people who are not christian or religious who do discriminate against homosexuals. I'd also bet that there are homosexuals who hate christians and would discriminate against them if they could. We've got all kinds in this world.

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Yo guys just proved my point. Let's be real about where the hate is coming from. By the way, homophobia is defined as dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people.

I'm not sure how we proved your point. Yes we know it's defined as dislike of homosexual people. Which you are. you may say you just dislike homosexuality itsself, but that would be like me saying I dislike heterosexuality itsself. It makes no sense.

No. Not true. I hate drunkeness, but I used to be a drunk and I don't hate myself. I like some homosexual people just fine and others not so much. My brother is gay and I love him, but I don't like him much because he continually bashes me when we talk on the phone. We never even get to discuss homosexuality. He has just assumed, for no valid reason, that I hate him.

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Which is a very convenient position for the evangelicals to take, but it's also not one whit convincing: you don't get to shop off the beliefs you adopt onto your god, and pretend that you have no ownership over them. At best, this appeal to second hand beliefs is simply a "just following orders" excuse, but the Nuremburg defense is hardly convincing. At worst, the position is that though the evangelicals don't hate women and homosexuals, they willingly opt to follow a set of beliefs and mandated actions that look, sound, and behave, precisely like a group who hated women and homosexuals would.

In essence, it's an attempt to act in ways befitting homophobic, misogynistic bigots, while shirking all the negative reactions that such behaviors would produce in a progressive society. Like I said, it's very convenient.

So your position is that because I believe homosexual relations are sinful that I hate homosexuals? And because I believe a woman should not be a pastor that means I hate women? So far, I've never advanced the position that people should be denied the right to have homosexual relations or women denied the right to be pastors in a church that allows it. Why do you assume something that you don't know about?

Shockingly, this point doesn't become less fatuous the more it's repeated. Marriage is sacred to christians? Who cares? If I decided that the erasure of the christian religion was sacred to me, if I had a few hundred years of tradition in that, would you and your churches completely disband in order to avoid stepping on my toes? What if christian marriage ceremonies were offensive to my religion, does that mean they should stop? Or is it just your religious observances that should be held above the secular government?

Additionally, this talk of "redefining" marriage is an eye rolling crock, because the christian habit of redefining marriage is well storied. Multiple wives? Gone. Slaves via marriage? Gone. Interracial marriages? Now allowed. The definition of marriage has already been redefined, even in recent history. Why should you get to draw a line in the sand for future generations simply because it's convenient to you?

If you want to call a union between two dogs marriage you can. I jut said that I think it's wrong to change the meaning of an institution that is sacred to so many. How do you view my previous example of fraternities and sororities?