Please provide a link for the incident.
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Much that is hurtful is achieved out of hate. But to treat people as pariahs in the absence of hate requires a dogma which is, if anything, far more dangerous only because it is too often impervious to reason.
How have you personally suffered?
Well said.
So, it was a private school?
And? Since nothing could be substantiated, no action was taken either. How is this different from a billion customer complaints that any service company routinely receives and processes?
There's your "both ways" (see thread title). What more do you want? You get to hurt the homosexual with your views that he or she is an abomination to a good god, and he or she should stifle from calling you a bigot because that hurts you? If you want the homosexual to quit calling you a bigot, quit calling him a sinner. That's both ways.
Of course that bigotry whether accompanied by hate (hot bigotry) or just a misunderstanding with no ill will (cold bigotry). I define bigotry as holding an irrational and destructive belief about every member of a law abiding class of people just for being a member of that class. One can easily be guilty of that absent malice.
That's a really good point.
Maybe I misunderstood you, but it seems to me that if they do not, then you have no reason to feel bothered, nor to complain.
Can you give me an example, then?
The quote above is how I suffer. I try day in and day out to prove I'm more hateful. But people keep watering down and generalizing words to suit their purposes. And the populace blindly accepts these interpretations. Half the year I just want to stay in bed and let the day go by without even knowing what's happening outside
But the majority of us don't make you pariahs. We just accept there's a new order and we're trying to find out new place in it
You probably get a double dose of that treatment as a gay atheist.
Like homosexuals, atheists are also demonized and marginalized to the point of often being closeted, and are often despised by Christians, called immoral and enemies of a good god, fit for damnation, a threat to civilization and goodness, and often shunned and/or estranged from family and former friends for "coming out."
Amusing anecdote: A poster on another site told me he was a gay, atheist, vegetarian. You can probably guess which of these caused the people around him to give him the most grief because I thought that it was funny enough to mention.
vegetarian
Agreed. Antitheism is completely justified by the centuries long, unprovoked assault on both homosexuality and atheism, as well as women's rights. A member of any of those groups is perfectly justified in pushing back. It's exactly analogous to the law. A takes a shot at B, and if B is still alive, returns fire. If A kills B, it's murder. If B kills A, it's not even a crime.
Well, the cake bake Jack Phillips. He was more than happy to make the sheet cake that they and all the guests ACTUALLY EAT for the wedding. However, he felt that the wedding cake would be too much of an expression of his belief. He wasn't trying to forcefully discriminate and he supported their right to marry. He just wanted a compromise so he felt he was still living within the terms of his religion.
Given what you believe, those are mutually exclusive. Once you state the bigoted position of the church regarding homosexuality, respect and dignity have flown out of the window. You seem to either not understand that or to reject it, but that won't make it go away or cause people to give you what you want.
If you want to be a soldier for Christ, you have to accept the consequences of expressing ideas that are unpopular among people not of your faith - the verdict of the court of popular opinion.
If this is the impact you feel from comments made in a quite well moderated forum I feel that, given your description of your symptoms, you might be suffering from depression. I would recommend that you consult a psychiatrist. Nothing really has been said here that should impact a person this way.
Then this isn't a country of freedom it's a country of peer pressure
So tell the fundamentalist (and not so fundamentalist) bigots who discriminate and abuse those with different values to them thus giving you a bad name.
Rational Agnostic
Well-Known Member
I like this post, and I think it brings up a good point, because I know how invested Christians are in their beliefs. Where is the line between freedom of religion and discrimination? I don't know, but personally I'm on the side of the guy who didn't sell his cupcakes to the gay couple in the court case. Obviously I disagree with his action, but I think he has a right to decide what type of events he gives his cakes to. In my opinion it was not discrimination, because he welcomes the gay couple to purchase anything from his store that they want, but because gay marriage is against his religious principles, he simply told them that he will not bake a cake for that particular event.
Skwim
Veteran Member
"All us"? Why are you being so particular? How many non-bigots on the right are required before one shouldn't make such a blanket statement? 1, 2, 350, 51,025? If the shoe doesn't fit don't feel obligated to wear it.
Protected from what?
Telling you what doesn't matter? That most Christians on the right are bigots? I have to believe that anyone who feels the Christian right is bigoted also feels this should matter to you.
So, all fundamentalists are jerks, are they. Not unlike, "all us" Christians on the right are bigots. Seems you have a major disconnect in your thinking here. You don't like to be bundled together with all the bigoted Christians on the right, but have no trouble lumping all fundamentalists into the jerk category.
Why do you invest so much in the opinions of strangers? Are they that important to you? Why?
Here's a bit of unasked for advice. Obviously there's a substantial number of the Christians on the right who are bigots, why else would the notion arise. So, I suggest all you un-bigoted Christians on the right slap some sense into them. They're giving you good people a bad name and making you feel bad. So take control of your Christian faction and clean it up. It is yours, isn't it?
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Peer pressure is part of freedom.
Once again, you seem to expect to be free to express your opinions, but call any blow back that those opinions engender a curtailment of your freedom.
What exactly do you want? What I just described?