LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

I didn't. Not voluntarily anyway. But you know, traditions and whatnot. I should probably have left it decades ago, but I'm lazy.

Church of Scotland votes to allow gay clergy marriages

At least it's a step.

A thought...

All of these religious freedom laws rely on "a sincerely held religious belief."

How can you tell what a sincere belief is? An upbringing in the Christian tradition? A new spiritual awakening in Pastafarianism?

These laws are always Christian biased, but would they include objections due to other serious faiths? Judaism? Islam? Wicca? Satanism? If it's convenient enough that your faith forbids you from doing something that everybody expects of you...

The laws aren't even Christan biased, they're fundamentalist Christian (normally Evangelical Baptist) biased, several Christian churches have tried arguing religious freedom for gay marriage (as in they're a pro-LGBT church and want to marry gay members of their congregation) and it never went anywhere.

Basically if you're not a Baptist or non-denomination Evangelical you don't get religious freedom.

The laws could probably be challenged on that argument alone, but you need someone of a non-Baptist faith to be willing to fight to battle in court, the pro-LGBT faiths (Christan or otherwise) normally have very few if any people in the areas that these laws are passed, and that's before you get into the costs and social damage involved in challenging such a law.

edited 23rd May '16 9:36:38 AM by Silasw

I find religious freedom a little sketchy since it says "I believe this and so you can't make me do anything I don't want to!"

Which I suppose is fine, unless other people are included.

The other thing is that the pro-LGBT churches tend to be pretty live and let live. They don't generally try to barge in on everyone else's freedoms. They're really happy if someone decides to join them, but they don't hate people who refuse.

Religion is really more than an ethical system you follow. It's a community that you either choose or are born into, and you subject yourself (or are subjected to) their laws.

America may have grown up Christian, but it's reached its rebellious agnostic phase where it wants to do what it wants, even though it's not sure what that is.

Actually, that's not true. America is way older than an adolescent. Maybe it's going through a midlife crisis?

Compare to China, America still has baby teeth.

Well, China is an old nation, arguably the oldest, in fact. It's more an old man. Regardless, the US is young by the standards of countries.

Of course, the US Constitution is the oldest legal document still in use, so one might argue that the US Government is in fact the oldest state still in existence.

edited 23rd May '16 11:44:33 AM by Protagonist506

You might want to rethink that. The whole of English common law basically amounts to extant revisions of... the recorded decrees of Henry II.

He spent decades codifying the accumulated mess of clashing Justinian, Celtic (some), Saxon and Norman traditions into ratified decrees thereafter written down and, more importantly, with basic procedures for dealing with it in future nailed to the wall. We've still got his legal decrees at the heart of it all.

Any country with even part of its system based on English common law owes the decrees of Henry (and his army of civil servants who helped him draught the things) a massive debt.

edited 23rd May '16 10:14:34 PM by Euodiachloris

The governor of Mississippi seems to think real Christians share his unhealthy crucifixion fetish.

He also goes on to praise family cult leader Tony Perkins, calling him a modern day David. Except instead of killing giants and seducing other men's wives, he's advocating child abuse and acting like a closet pedo. Yeah, I can see how he'd equate the two.

His rallying cry won't get very far. But if he thinks most progressives want to crucify him literally, he doesn't understand what progressive means. And I doubt he is important enough to be crucified metaphorically.

I was on one of those LGBT Christian websites and came across this article that some of you might find interesting. I felt like this would be a good place to share this with.

http://www.gaychurch.org/homosexuality-and-the-bible/some-talking-points-on-christianity-and-homosexuality/

It all seems well and good...until it gets to the part about possibly classifying Deborah as transgender because she didn't act like a stereotypical woman of the time. /facepalm

Yet more proof you can fight for equality on one front and be bigoted to some degree on others.

Honestly, I've seen trans headcanons with flimsier justification.

I think we can maybe, just maybe, make a distinction between the weird part of certain fandoms and someone who posting on a website (in theory) devoted to reconciling LBGT rights and Christianity.

Aw crap, I didn't notice that when I read the article {I was tired when I first saw it}. Sorry about that.

I think we can at least give him a

Yeah I also really don't like how they tried to paint the slave owner-boy slave relationship as a happy homosexual one. You relay can't ignore the fact that it's a slave relationship and a probably abusive pedophile one.

Hell my personal logic around Paul's statements to the Corinthians is that he was condemning homosexuality as he knew it, the practise of older men abusive younge boys. Paul didn't know of any healthy homosexual relationships like we have now (and like probably exists din secret back then) so his statements have no authority on such relationships.

So centuries of suffering and abuse occurred because a religious leader didn't get out much? Thanks, Paul, we appreciate it.

Personally I'm of the mindset that...so what if the Not So Good Book says that homosexuality is more evil than murder and transgender people don't exist? Unless one lives in a theocratic police state like Iran, one has the legal right to reject the words of any "holy text", no matter how many copies it's sold at Books a Million. Don't get me wrong. The Bible is useful for studying its impact on our culture. It's inspired some amazing art, and at least some of its morals are sound. But nobody should have to justify their existence to a collection of ancient stories from a time when slavery was socially acceptable and bats were considered a kind of bird.

edited 6th Jun '16 12:45:24 AM by Morgikit

You might not care about correcting widespread factual inaccuracies (and that's your right) but some of us do.

Sure it doesn't matter legally, and it shouldn't matter culturally, but for some folks it does matter culturally, and correcting their misunderstand might prevent some abuse.

But yeah Paul was... Well Paul... He didn't like sex in general, he wanted everyone to practise abstinence because he was sure that Jesus would be right back anyway. Interestingly enough I belive there has been speculation that Paul was asexual.

edited 6th Jun '16 1:20:48 AM by Silasw

Silly rabbit. I'm not against educating people. But I've found that you can't educate people who have made a conscious choice to remain ignorant. For every rebuttal of their arguments against homosexuality, they have a counter. They pretty much have to for their worldview to survive. Or they'll just ignore you. The best we can do is neutralize the negative impact they have on society.

in the continuation of the bloody obvious, the Pope is Catholic, bears shit in the woods, and fundamentalists faith schools teach homophobia and sexism