LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

Too garish.

Black and White Tee Shirts?

Too dull.

No clothing at all?

Oh I get that, which is why I still help despite being mistreated by individuals.

What most would-be allies seem to fail to comprehend is, when they go to help an oppressed group they are basically dealing with abuse victims...and such people are seldom if ever rational, especially when the subject of their abuse comes up. If you want to help such people, you have to accept that they are on occasion going to turn around and bite you for the favor. But such behavior is neither their fault (completely) nor indicative of a weakness in their cause.

Now, I'm of the opinion that the LGBT community could treat its allies better. But I understand why that's going to be slow in coming.

WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE CALLING IRRATIONAL YOU SON OF A-...oh...sorry.

Could the yackity-yack posts please cease? Yack Fest is thattaway.

Fine.

To be honest, I don't think I care for being called irrational. But whatever, I've been called worse. I suppose your assessment is a fairly accurate one.

edited 8th Sep '12 10:40:56 PM by Morgikit

@Morgkit: As far as I know you aren't irrational. But some individual homosexuals have gotten very irrational with me over the years. I don't assume that every gay person is walking around with a pocketful of weapons-grade crazy...but when I catch such a thing in the teeth I'm not super-offended.

They are, after all, members of a group that society has used as a punching bag for quite a while now. That's bound to make anyone a mite grumpy.

Indeed, being marginalized for long enough will make certain members of the marginalized group push back more aggressively.

When about 90% of unchurched people associate Christianity with "judgmental, hypocritical, anti-homosexual and too involved in politics", it should come as no surprise that Christians will receive resentment from the LGBT community even if they're not part of the gay-bashing.

For those members of the Christian religion who seek positive change, they always have and always will need to do so in the face of their religious leadership and tradition. Divine right of kings, slavery, subjugation of women and racism, were long defended by smart men who believed God was on their side. Of course, you'd be hard pressed to find Christian leaders who will even admit that today.

And even among the so-called "moderate" Christian churches, they don't say that "gays are an abomination that should be destroyed", they still say, "homosexuality is a sin", and "we don't hate gays, we hate their sin", and "we oppose gay marriage because it's a sin" and "everybody is a sinner, and we can help gays change". Honestly when the best they can offer is "join us and we can change who you are", that isn't a very inspiring message. When I hear that sort of thing, it makes me think back 150 years to, "We don't hate negroes. We believe that their natural state is subservient to the white race". One is no better than the other.

"When about 90% of unchurched people associate Christianity with "judgmental, hypocritical, anti-homosexual and too involved in politics", it should come as no surprise that Christians will receive resentment from the LGBT community even if they're not part of the gay-bashing. "

But is that assumption fair or even accurate?

Also your (rather blatantly) stereotyping moderate Christian churches.

edited 9th Sep '12 6:28:32 AM by DeviantBraeburn

I was quoting off the top of my head. Here's the original from The Barna Group's website, from a study they did of young people age 16-29 in 2007.

Link to Source

edited 9th Sep '12 6:28:38 AM by Lawyerdude

One thing you have to realize is that religious leaders/groups put a LOT of time, effort and energy into developing the notion that one's religious beliefs are the primary source of ones values, morals and ethics. In fact, that's generally how we treat religion in our society, and this actually gives it a VERY privileged position. Furthermore, they also put a lot of time, effort and energy..both mainstream and more fundamentalist groups..into sending the message that Christianity IS more or less a monolithic block with similar values, ethics, etc. This wasn't the case even as soon as a decade or two ago..but this has REALLY been ratcheted up over the last decade or so. I suspect it's a reaction to growing secularism.

Blaming outsiders for actually taking ALL that at face value isn't exactly fair. Want it to change? So do I. But it's something that's going to require actual sacrifice and internal change. It's going to take a delinking of religion from authoritarian morality, and a delinking of said authoritarian morality from wider automatic acceptance.

If a person doesn't like what their church teaches, they can quit. If there is anything you disagree with, you can go. Find something else. I did. But if they stay on, keep giving their time, effort, money and loyalty to that church, then they are supporting everything that church's leadership says and does.

I wouldn't require somebody else to do what I wouldn't do myself. I disagreed with my family's church, so I quit. If I can't stand up and say that I believe every single religious dogma down to the very core of my being, then I have no business being part of that church. I do not want to be a hypocrite. If I was in a church that said that I had to vote or act in a way that went against my own conscience and judgment, I would give them the old one-fingered salute (metaphorically speaking) and be out the door.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:11:04 AM by Lawyerdude

Unfortunately many Christians see leaving the church as turning their back on God which means they're going to Hell. That's certainly the way most of my liberal Catholic friends see it. They don't like the church but they feel they have to stay.

That kind of hurt my brain a little. If they believe the Church can be wrong about one thing, why can't the Church be wrong about hell? And if they believe that the Church is God, then how could they question anything it says?

On the other hand, maybe they're just cowards.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:18:06 AM by Lawyerdude

Christians aren't allowed to question God? What a bizarre religion...

I don't know. I think they have it in their mind that the church is right but they don't like the truth or something like that. They probably believe they're sinners or something but they view that as preferable to not being part of the church at all. Sorry I can't be more informative, I generally don't talk with them about such things.

It could also be that they wish to change it from the inside in some fashion but I'm not sure how they'd do that in practice.

Not really. The thing about God is that he's described as being perfect and all knowing. Such a being can therefore never be wrong about such things. The inherent problem in this is that the only thing we have that says what he thinks is right and wrong is a 1000+ year old book that has been subject to numerous translations and has been analyzed by various corrupt priests. It's one of the reasons I don't take the majority of the Bible literally. I sincerely don't think I can since I can't know what something originally meant or what was added after it was written.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:24:18 AM by Kostya

Yeah, I know. Its just depressing thinking how hard and thankless it is to change someones mind on really anything.

So I'm gonna take it that there are no moderate churches around.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:22:17 AM by DeviantBraeburn

Well from my experience my church is moderate. Our pastors generally talk about how Jesus talked about forgiveness and being kind to others and how we must treat all people with respect regardless of what they were born like rather than "If you do not do X you are going to Hell!" Unfortunately we're a protestant church which means we're not "true Christians" in the eyes of most Catholics. Therefore if they left the Catholic church for my church they view it as not being a Christian anymore even though they're still going to a Christian church.

Just to clarify there are other protestant churches around so theoretically if one of them went to one of those and wanted to leave they could come to us but I don't know anyone that goes to those churches. Well I suppose I could know them but if so then I don't know they go there.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:34:27 AM by Kostya

It's a lot easier to condemn and persecute somebody if you don't know them. One reason why young people are more accepting of LGBT individuals is that they have encountered them at school or socially. The preachers who make the decisions on behalf of their religious followers live in a world where they don't interact with anybody outside their own sphere. They live in a cocoon where everybody thinks the same, lives the same, and has the same background.

I was mainly indifferent to the problems that LGBT individuals faced until I went to college and actually met some openly gay people. At that point, I came to realize that I could never support an ideology that would require me to hate my friends or deprive them of the rights that I enjoyed.

But if you're a preacher, you've been taught and reinforced that you are "better" than the common rabble. Therefore you can make judgments about total strangers based only on religious dogma. Do you think Ratzinger or Billy Graham or James Dobson ever had any gay friends growing up? I highly doubt it.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:44:03 AM by Lawyerdude

Or perhaps courage has more than one definition. Maybe it takes courage to walk away from something you don't agree with.

Maybe it also takes courage to say "I believe these people are wrong and I won't pretend to agree with them. But I'm loyal to the cause and I'll continue to stay for the sake of all the good we can yet do."

Dude, back off. People in this thread are being polite, you can do it too.

Basically this. And having a personal understanding of the situation (rather than an intellectual one) is necessary to make a balanced decision.