All arguments aside about whether being gay is a sin or not - what about those Christians who take it upon themselves to persecute gay people? We could debate the issue of evidence and proof for a year, and for another year you could reject all evidence to show gay and trans people are as natural as heterosexual people, as well as rejecting all reasonable religious alternatives to the choice some make to hate - or to love us in the name of the same God many of us also love and who also loves us. But let us put that aside for a moment, and narrow it down to response.
By this I mean that you don't see crowds of people in the streets of the US for example at religious right rallies baying for the blood of gamblers, drunks and men caught cheating on their wives for example - crying "they are an abomination before God!" and holding signs that say "Gamblers Burn In Hell". You don't read about people calling themselves "Christian soldiers" for "drunk-bashing" or murdering obese people, do you?
You don't have campaigns by religious groups aimed at inciting hatred against alcoholics - and therefore campaigns by alcoholics to have hate crimes protection included in the Constitution - and then also religious campaigns to block aforementioned laws because they "infringe on freedom of religious expression"? While alcoholism is seen as a sin, it is also recognized as an illness, but that is another matter for another debate.
As bigots also say "homosexuality is not a special sin" - sure, gay and trans people are not perfect, we have sin as you do. For ALL have fallen short of the glory of God, remember? Even assuming that inborn gender and sexuality could ever be a "sin" - for some reason gay-hating groups single us out and make us "special". Why are these groups not targeting liars, gamblers, thieves, fraudsters, adulterers, pedophiles, and other 'sinners' as enthusiastically and in as organized, hateful and plainly vindictive a manner as they target gay and trans people?
Drunken layabout fathers (or mothers) are not singled out as threats to the all-important (and largely fantastical) "family unit". And ironically, people who preach and incite hate against others are not called "threats to civilization". No, but these groups target specifically gay and trans people. They use us as a specific rallying cry to bring their groups together. We are being singled out as scapegoats and being blamed by religious personalities for all manner of ills, including droughts, natural disasters, political failures and even the bizarre claims made by American ex-gay group 'Exodus International' at the recent Uganda Homosexuality Conference which blamed the 1994 Rwanda genocide on gay people!
To me it means that while these groups may frown on their faults, those others are not hated - or at least not hated as much as we are.
Do you not see this as a disproportionate and unreasonable response? The hypocrisy? Does this not reveal something seriously wrong with the leadership and dogma and so called "world view" of religious bodies and those persecuting us? I think these comparisons provide stark revelations, don't you?
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