"Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies"

One. Two-hoo! Three! ... *Crunch*

Three.

A-Hahaha! Absolutely beautiful.

"Ruth Malhotra is a senior at the Georgia Institute of Technology, majoring in International affairs and public policy. As a conservative activist, Ruth has fought hard to confront leftist bias and advance conservative ideals by promoting academic freedom and intellectual diversity both within and beyond the campus."

intellectual diversity eh?

I feel better already.

First thing I'ma gonna do is start me a congregation of Thugees who worship the death goddess Kali. Then we's a gonna kill all a' them gay bashing fundies and plead freedom of religion, because, you see, and this is the beauty of it, my diety requires their blood. This is gonna be sooooo much fun!

Hey! Who's up for reviving Qetzlcoatl while we're at it and building us some kinda honking huge pyramid of skulls?!

so not gonna happen

xpost

this is all pretty obvious, i guess, but i never hear it argued when conservatives bring up the diversity garbage to support bigoted acts, when it'll probably trump them on their own playing field.

major x-post

I agree with that, that's why I was interested in hearing about legal aspects of hate speech in the United States

I'm pretty sure that if a person convicted of, say, assault is known to have directed "hate speech" at the victim up to or during the attack, then the assault is considered a "hate crime" and punishment may be stiffened during the sentencing period of the trial.

(This is based on hazy recollections from a 9AM civil liberties class, so feel free to correct if I'm mistaken)

2) that the AP reporter went straight to a Scaife/Coors-funded rightwing fundie thinktank for the religious conservative rejection of some folks wanting to have fun in a public(secular?) event

3) that this is an interesting mix of secular/religious/pagan/christian dealies going on all at once.

4) that just wanting to bring yer kids to the fuckin' WH Easter Egg thing is now apparently a political act

Any good student knows that making a claim without any proof or evidence is worth less than an "F" grade. And just because you shout something at the top of your lungs, it doesn't actually make it true. I could never understand how people, who claim to be 100% heterosexual, can definitively tell you how a person can be gay, as if that person were the foremost authority on homosexuality.

What is with her obsession with gays? Did her ex-boyfriend dump her for a guy? She needs some serious psychological counseling.

pasolini's 'the gospel according to st. matthew' to thread!

so, uhm, should we make the usual obvious distiction here? I mean, of COURSE, we're not talking about all or most christians, but the group best defined as "batshit fundies"; the ones who have the massive authoritarian streak, etc etc etc

The purpose of this post is only 50% so that I could use the word 'nabiscine'.

Many Christians think one main purpose of the government is to approve of doing good and disapprove of doing wrong. It doesn't matter if it is public or private, just if it is right or wrong. How does the government decide what it should approve or disapprove of? public opinion. Some of the public holds to an absolute morality others a relativistic. Those who hold to an absolute morality can use reason to better investigate and define right and wrong.

What is with her obsession with gays? Did her ex-boyfriend dump her for a guy? She needs some serious psychological counseling.
haha i never knew a nairn was so repulsive

see, these veer towards intolerance of a person, not just an idea. Was she or I ever intolerating a person? Or was it just about an idea?

most people with common sense know that homosexuality is not a choice.

Appealing to common sense doesn't really benefit an argument. How do we know if it is common sense or common ignorance? I was under the impression that there is no scientific proof of this, and I assume that it is more complicated than just that no amount of choice is involved; some parts nature and some parts nuture; the whole spectrum.
But even if there is zero choice involved it doesn't effect Christian morality. A Christian believes no one can choose not to sin. By their nature they are sinful in different ways.

I can echo this.

Attack homosexuality and you have a real effect, or the threat of one; even when you're not denying homosexuals rights or housing or concrete things, you're marginalizing them and denying them some measure of full participation in society.

In the pragmatic sense, this is true and what makes it difficult to talk about the idea of homosexuality. People (and Christians especially) need to be much more careful and gentle when disagreeing with the idea of homosexuality. They need to be aware of any potential consequences of what they say, and try to minimize them.

But, one can't expect a Christian to change what they hold as God's unchangeable word, or for them to reinterpret it however society dictates. (many Christians do, and they lose some of the true meaning)

So, then I ask, in the free exchange of ideas, how would you like to see a Christian talk about their disagreement with homosexuality?

That last bit, thankfully, doesn't hold true for too many people, although I have seen quite a few comments to that effect on ILX. But I do think that a big part of the current problem in social discourse comes from how alien "belief" is to some people. (And on the other side of the fence, perhaps, the understanding that one does not have to attend church every Sunday to have a sound moral compass.)

(And, BTW, I say this all as a fairly committed non-religious "liberal.")

Serious question, do you think that you could choose not to be?

ok, yeah, this book looks interesting and informative.

Humans develop their morality through interactions with other humans and with the world a human divorced from this then he can be neither moral or immoral and probably not even human. Morality is by its very nature relative, noe this doesn't mean that we should make the morality that we work into law some kind of lowest common denominator public opinion, no we can enshrine an ideal into law, but that ideal should not be clouded with the petty and base and should be based upon the consesnsus of society not on 1700 year old books, even if some people choose to be informed by them.

i chose every day--sexuality is a social construction, and a seires of negotiated power positions.

(last time i thot about not fucking men, last sunday, farm girl and farm boy, strangers, the boy a sold sqaure of corn fed muscle, short, hairy, blonde, and casual in his eroticism, the girl, tall, big, huge tits, large ass, r crumbs wet dream, cover alls and a tight red t shirt, wanted to go upstairs then and there)

There's a time for all of these things, on a forum like this, arguing about issues, how do I help the poor and sick? I guess I could turn off the computer and go find some people to help. That's what I was doing the last 3 weeks, and I hope to do a lot more of that in my future.

Yeah, it's like Jesus said: Yea, thou shalt get Caesar to do God's work for him.

Some of the public holds to an absolute morality others a relativistic.

Christians, like pretty much everyone else, belong to the latter group.

Nairn, you suggest that homosexuality is not "for the common good" as an example. But then you came up with zero plausible reasons why. "They spread AIDS" is, frankly, a positively hateful (let alone ridiculous) thing

Trayce, I didn't say "they spread AIDS." I said that "homosexuality is unhealthy, and [homosexuality] can spread AIDS to other homosexuals and non-homosexuals alike."

What I meant by this is that 'male-to-male sexual contact' is the cause of the most transmissions of AIDS (around 58% of all the transmissions even though only 5-7% of males are self-identified as homosexuals)

as written about here:
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/facts/msm.htm

How is any of this hateful or ridiculous? If anything, diminishing the significants of how homosexual activity can result in the transmission of AIDS is more hateful. It could lead to less prevention education directed at homosexuals and then more infections. (but I assume your motives behind these thoughts are good, so in reality not hateful)

and in response to Ed's statements about moral relativism,

we can enshrine an ideal into law, but that ideal should not be clouded with the petty and base and should be based upon the consesnsus of society

the consensus of what society?

The Southern U.S. had a consensus that slavery was perfectly fine before the Civil War. Many of the people on trial at Nuremberg said they were just following the rules; the consensus of their society. I think as a person questions the view of relative morality more thoroughly and honestly they will notice some kind of appeal to a 'higher standard.'

a) homosexual sex practices are more dangerous than heterosexual ones, or
b) homosexuals practice unsafe sex more often than heterosexuals.

or is this just something its impossible to get reliable data on?

[And by a) I mean some very complicated calculation of (frequency of oral x oral transmission rate) + (frequency of anal x anal transmission rate) vs. (frequency of oral x oral rate) + (frequency of vaginal x vaginal rate) + (frequency of anal x anal rate). Or whatever the math would be.)]

definitely NO.

"b) homosexuals practice unsafe sex more often than heterosexuals."

In some respects YES, but the other reason is rather obvious historically - AIDS/HIV struck the gay community first, and established itself rather firmly and has thus been more difficult to eradicate.

But look at international statistics, the vast majority of infections are from plain ol penis-into-vagina sex.

No, at least not any way I can think of it. That's why the complicated math. Presumably in some ideal world you could survey a group of homosexuals about what kind of sex they had and how often and get some representation of the statistically average person's practices... "has oral sex X times/week, etc." and then do the same with a group of heteros of the same number.

"a) homosexual sex practices are more dangerous than heterosexual ones, or"

definitely NO

Ergo transmission rates for anal and vaginal are roughly the same. (Or chance of transmission or whatever - obviously raw numbers make no sense as you point out.)

Sorry if it sounds like I'm trying to collect talking points for the religious right. I'm just curious, that's all.

No, at least not any way I can think of it. That's why the complicated math. Presumably in some ideal world you could survey a group of homosexuals about what kind of sex they had and how often and get some representation of the statistically average person's practices... "has oral sex X times/week, etc." and then do the same with a group of heteros of the same number.

"a) homosexual sex practices are more dangerous than heterosexual ones, or"

definitely NO

Ergo transmission rates for anal and vaginal are roughly the same? (Or chance of transmission or whatever - obviously raw numbers make no sense as you point out.)

Sorry if it sounds like I'm trying to collect talking points for the religious right. I'm just curious, that's all.

Circumcision, Fidelity More Effective HIV Prevention Methods Than Condoms, Abstinence, Researchers Say

Oh, Nairn! By stooping to use statistics to prove a moral point, you are acting like the worst kind of moral relativist! If sexual activity can spread AIDS and spreading AIDS is "not for the common good", then all sexual activity that could conceivably spread AIDS is "not for the common good", not simply homosexual activity.

Even if heterosexual activity could claim that it is ' 500% less likely' to spread AIDS, that does not make it '500% less bad' unless you accept that the morally relativistic term '500% less bad' is meaningful.

therefore, stop spreading the damn gospel and rape will end

...David Parker was jailed last year after he refused to leave a school when officials declined to exclude his 6-year-old son from discussions of gay parents. Parker initially complained after his son brought home a "diversity book bag" with a book that depicted a gay family.

Their attorney, Jeffrey Denner, said Lexington violated the rights of privacy and freedom of religion of his clients -- all identified as devout Christians in the lawsuit -- by unilaterally deciding how and when lessons about gay marriage will be taught...

Damn those schools acting all unilaterally! Only I as a parent can decide when and IF my child is to learn about the Teapot Dome scandal, as well as pre-algebra! anything different is obviously violating my rights.

A TikTok'er is exposing churches that refuse to help a hungry baby
https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/a-tiktoker-is-exposing-churches-that

For the past week, TikToker Nikalie Monroe has been running a fascinating social experiment to find out if religious groups are actually willing to live out their stated values.

She recently told her followers about how SNAP benefits were set to expire because of Republican cruelty, leaving a lot of people without vital resources to feed their families. (That video received under 1,000 views.)

Then, instead of just explaining the problem, Monroe tried a different tactic: She started calling local houses of worship while pretending to be a new mother who couldn’t afford formula for her baby.

Would they help her out?

She recorded their conversations and posted them online—along with their names and contact information. It should have been great publicity for those religious groups! After all, this would be an easy way for them to live out the Gospel message, right?

(results are about what you expect)