Which is why I think certain lifestyles of belief are indicative that someone's an ignorant moron.

[azurelunatic]

(via dduane) Christians Sue for Right Not to Tolerate Policies

Warning: disconnected ramble

BJ had these smug little "Yooo-uuu're going to Hee-llllll" T-shirts that he'd gotten through his church. They were intended to be friendly reminders that sin is real and hell is real and unless you step smartly, you're DOOMED! He wore them to work. He wouldn't listen to me about how much I hated them. When work told him to cut it the fuck out, he complained bitterly to me. He didn't get no sympathy from me, because I was the one who bloody well complained to work about the shirts in the first place. I kept hoping that the washing machine would eat them.

News flash: Orientation, whether it's genetic, developed, or both, is a deeply fundamental part of someone's being. It's not something you can turn off and on. It is something that you can repress, ignore, embrace, be discreet about, shout from the rooftops, exaggerate, or just go with the flow. Any specific religion is less inherently part of a person's being than sexuality is, even though it was taught to you as Right and the Only Way from when you were in the cradle on up, though there seems to be a common need among many people to have religion.

"Lifestyle" is ... good gods. The flamboyant metropolitan campy flaming gay thing is a lifestyle. The flaming public anti-gay activist is also a lifestyle. Those people had to choose to take that dark underside of their personality public. It's not an acceptable choice. It's wrong. They can think anything they like in the privacy of their own heads and their little private groups, but inflicting their lifestyle on the rest of us is unacceptable.

That's how it looks from the other way around, you inexplicable things.

If you're going to fight for the "right" to harass people, damn straight I will fight to harass you right back. Which is why campuses develop anti-harassment policies, because this could escalate to the point of violence and rioting.

Comments

[sraun]

There are no words.

Could we give these people a small stipend to live in, say, Iran for six months, and see how they feel when they come back?

[azurelunatic]

Since the Shrubbery is now starting to declare Iran to be Public Enemy Number One, I would not want to convince one of these volatile martyrs-in-training that not only is the Shrubbery right in general, that he is right on a very intensely personal level.

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

uhh ... there's something odd going on here ...

I'd say people being flamboyantly gay is shoving their lifesyle in others' faces ... I'm trying to figure out how you'd define the difference ...

To paraphrase: "Religion, whether it's taught, chosen, or a bit of both, is a deeply fundamental part of many people's beings. It's not something you can turn off and on. It is something that you can repress, ignore, embrace, be discreet about, shout from the rooftops, exaggerate, or just go with the flow."

Anything indoctrinated from birth will have extraordinarily strong burn-in, and sexual orientation, even if in-born, doesn't really start developing, expressing, and reinforcing itself until kids have long been learning religion.

Maybe I'm just saying, be careful to focus your argument. Is this a hate-speech thing? Where/how do you draw the line?

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

By the way, I'm not saying intolerant people aren't stupid — though I might describe it as "unfortunately educated."

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I would *guess* her post is in response to this. It's been all over various newswires and journals today.

[azurelunatic]

That is indeed the one.

[azurelunatic]

Some people who have been unfortunately educated can be fortunately educated. Some people will not be.

[azurelunatic]

I'm thinking that the people who are being very flamboyantly religious yet protesting about people being flamboyantly gay have missed the clue train somewhere.

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

Aah, as, aparently, I did. :-)

[yinepuhotep.livejournal.com]

I'm there.

I don't give a rat's ass if you're gay, straight, bi, mono, poly, or whatever. If I don't ask you about your preferences, I don't care!

By the same token, if I have not asked about your religious preferences, I do not want to know.

How hard is that to understand? Pushing either in my face, without my permission, is harassment. I will respond as I deem appropriate.

[wibbble]

From an outsider's perspective, it's hilarious how they try to play the role of the oppressed minority, while not being oppressed or a minority.

Tony Blair faced public ridicule a few weeks ago because, in an interview, he said that he'd be judged by God for his decision to invade Iraq. Not even that he made the right decision - just that he believed that a higher power would ultimately judge if he was right or not.

When the right-wing Bible-bashing nutters come to the UK, they're usually horrified. We /have/ prayer in schools (even in the non-denominational schools I went to as a non-Catholic, I still said the Lord's Prayer every day for most years of Primary school, and there was religious service once a month), and all it does it make kids apathetic towards religion. Most people I went to school with were atheists or agnostic, when they gave it any thought at all. (So was I, frankly.)

IIRC, one evangelical leader called Scotland a 'national of Heathens', because he was publicly ridiculed for being a psychotic bigoted bastard. My Heathen friends were much amused.

It would be interesting to try and track down the cultural differences that make this sort of thing acceptable in the US, and not here. It's too early in the morning for me to pin it down exactly, but there must be some discrete factors that could then be worked on to produce change in the American culture and society...

[azurelunatic]

I am sure that the "My way is the Right Way, and the rest of y'all can go fuck yourselves" attitude plays in a large part.

[azurelunatic]

Discussion over there: http://dduane.livejournal.com/36347.html