njlauren
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
You're clearly talking about an instance of social conformity and not claiming Christianity invented homophobia and K's smart enough to know that.
Here's the thing the deniers can try to sweep this problem under the rug by calling us anti religious and making stuff up about our positions and motivations, but it's not going away. Unless they plan on calling 80% of young Christians anti religious they're going to need to come up with a better obfuscation in the not too distant future to deny this problem.
quote:
ORIGINAL: https://www.barna.org/barna-update/teens-nextgen/94-a-new-generation-expresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity#.U3JRsld9dbU
Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else.
Nicely put, Got Steel, the spin doctors that Christianity is and always has been this loving, wonderful religion and the problem with homosexuality is bad old humans is a cop out, pure and simple. What Kirata and the others, who obviously are practicing Christians, are upset about is that Christianity has been tarred by the brush of being anti gay bigots, and they are doing what Catholics who though they don't like what the Bishops in this country are doing, claim 'Catholic Bashing" when people criticize the Bishops and the church over its handling of the priest abuse scandal, it is the older dodge in the book, if someone points out the King is wearing no clothes, saying the person saying that is 'out to get the king' and so forth.
The reason young people associate Christianity with being anti gay is because in their lifetime, they see the opposition to gays, and they see where it is coming from...and more importantly, they see that the so called liberal churches, who do try to be open and affirming, also have remained amazingly silent about the churches that are out there saying all these vile things. Kids aren't stupid, they are tuned in, and they know that with proposition 8 in california that those that got it passed were the religious, and they saw all the vile, horrible things being said about gays, the lies, the horrible claims, and also saw that the 'good christians' did nothing. There is an old expression, if liberal Christians want to really, really prove they aren't anti gay, then they need to get off their asses and do something....part of the problem is the liberal churches explain away the evangelicals, the morons down in the bible belt, they make 10,000 excuses for them,they say they are uneducated (true), they don't know any better, they have been raised that way, but want to know something, that is bullshit. If Fred Phelps and crew protest at a dead gay person's funeral, the 'good christians' should be out there in force protesting fred phelps.....When Obama had Rick Warren preach at his inauguration, the "Good Christians' should have flooded Obama's people with all kinds of objections, given how anti gay Warren is. When Romney was running for president and kept talking about 'family values' and made clear he was against same sex marriage, liberal churches should have taken a page out of the conservative playbook and told their parishioners that voting for a candidate who was anti gay because he promised them a tax cut was inconsistent with their claim of being pro gay. Something like 60% of Catholics support same sex marriage, and like 80% of them favor laws making discrimination against gays illegal, yet they do jackshit when the nasty old white men who run the church have made being anti gay one of the two main tenets of the faith it seems (that, and being anti abortion), they don't do anything, despite being themselves supportive of gays (what could they do? If the priest preaches anti gay stuff, refuse to pay their tithe or leave the church; if their local bishop is a bigot, refuse to allow any of their money to go to the diocese or broader church, and more importantly, speak out......one of the reasons anyone listens to the Catholic Bishops is because they claim their followers vote along with what they teach; if those 60% of 80% made clear they wouldn't vote for an anti gay candidate, you can bet the Bishops would lose out, big time).
For all its claims of being liberal, the Episcopal Church has fallen flat in my eyes......yeah, they now have a same sex blessing that churches can use, but they still don't accept same sex marriage as being the same as straight marriage...and the reason they do this isn't because they aren't liberal, they do it because they are afraid of offending the conservative churches in the us in the EC (note, under EC law, no church would have to accept gay marriage in their church, so a conservative church could refuse to recognize it or do it), and worse, they refuse to do so because they are afraid of offending the stupid, ignorant jackasses in the anglican churches in Africa, so they throw their gay members under the bus (meanwhile, the US supplies significant money to run churches in Africa as well as significant mission programs and the like...).
For all the 'liberal' Christian churches, they have let the Catholic leadership, and the evangelicals and the like, define Christianity, and they are paying the price for it. When gay issues come up, the young people see all the usual suspects on the other side, and want to know something? The liberal Christian churches and their members are nowhere to be found. It is all great and good that Christian churches now march in pride parades, but they have some big work to do to convince young people that not all Christians or Christian churches are as bad as the Rick Warrens of the world, or worse, the GOP, who have proclaimed themselves the party of the faithful and to this day, as a party, are the voice of anti gay behavior in this country. Put it this way, John Boehner wouldn't even let ENDA come to a vote (the law that would protect gays from discrimination in the workplace, housing, etc) and despite his claim it was it would invite frivilous lawsuits or was not needed, everyone knows he was afraid of the religious right, not to mention that he himself is a big time bible thumper, or so he claims.....where were all the liberal Christian churches protesting him doing this? Where was the outrage? Plenty of the holy roller and the like types spoke out decrying ENDA, but where were the liberal churches? If Christianity is not anti gay, where is the outrage? Where are the people calling for good Christians to vote Boehner out of office (personally, how anyone could elect a man like him befuddles me, his creep factor is way, way up there).....if the religious are upset that their church is called bigoted and anti gay, then maybe, just maybe, they aren't as pro gay as they think, inclusive language and hoisting a rainbow flag is all well and good, but as Burke once said, for evil to triumph, all good men have to do is nothing. More important, when 'the good guys' don't speak out, when they let the 'bad guys' have the floor, what ends up happening is the 'good guys' look like they support the 'bad guys'.
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RE: -=Federal Judge Strikes Down Virginia Gay Marriage ... - 
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