How to deal with religious homophobes?

me as well, my parents wanted me to go into the ministry so i have done some study of the teachings of Jesus and the Bible. there is no, let me repeat no teaching of Christ against same sex relations. so from that i come to one of two conclusions, either they were a non issue for Him (maybe because they were so common) or they were as blessed in God's eyes as hetro relations. as for the rest of the Bible there is a letter from a Baptist Minister named Bruce Lowe who had started preaching at a very young age and died in his 90's, he did this later in life. if you care any about this issue i do advise giving it a read, it is a bit long but well worth it. like i said my folks wanted me to join the Ministry, so i heard the religious arguments against LGBT, just read it and then come talk about all the evil Christian.

link to a Letter to Louise;
http://pflagcanada.ca/pdfs/louise.pdf

---------- Post added 27th Apr 2014 at 09:07 PM ----------

i read this awhile ago after a friend came out as Bi and transfemale to me last fall.

 

You do describe yourself as a "militant atheist", so, yes, actually, it is similar (albeit on a lesser scale in your case). Dogma is irrational, and to be militant is to be dogmatic. How is militancy a good thing?! The kinds of religious people that bash us are militant Christians (never mind that Leviticus is part of the old Testament, which the Jews follow, not the Christians, and that Jesus wanted everyone to love one another, and... :soapbox. I'm an agnostic atheist myself, even. Both CaptainClyde and Cass seemed reasonable to me.

 

do you think you are better than religious people? are you putting a stigma on religious people? are you being, nicely put, a jerk in your posts about religious people? yes. So therefore you are being a hypocrite.

My best friend is an Agnostic, although i believe she seems more of an atheist. Her issues are not with religious people its with the ones who are jerks. just as my problem is not with atheists, satanists, agnostics, or anyone of any religion or lack thereof, its with people who think they are better than anyone else because of what they believe or don't. You however seem to have a problem with people of religion in general, which is not okay.

 

I don't understand what Rakkaus said that caused everyone to fly off the handle. Can one of the people who've stolen the thread to whine about it please explain?

 

Leviticus is part of the Christian Bible too. And Jesus specifically said he did not come to destroy the old Law, but to fulfill it, not one jot or tittle of the Law shall pass until heaven and earth pass.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
--Matthew v.17-18

And there is condemnation in the New Testament as well.

"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."
--Romans i.24-27

To interpret the Judeo-Christian Bible as affirming rather than condemning of homosexuals requires extreme eisegesis.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being militant. I am militantly in favor of LGBTQ rights as well. Religion has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, obstacles to LGBTQ equality. Particularly Abrahamic religions. Ancient paganism was at least cool and had interesting myths.

And religion, by the way, is a CHOICE. People choose to believe in a religion. It is not an innate characteristic of someone. Sexual orientation: NOT A CHOICE. The two are not remotely comparable.

---------- Post added 27th Apr 2014 at 08:08 PM ----------

Apparently I was mean to religious homophobes.

 

I agree religion is a choice, I would not force it upon anyone, I have the up-most respect for your choice of what you believe. I response to what you posted about Romans 1:24-27. Many religious advocates against homosexuality cherry pick these verses out of the Bible without understanding the context or other things they can mean.

Article can be found here: Does Romans 1 Condemn Homosexuality? | Romans 1:26-27 and Homosexuality | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

I'm just using this to show how they can use religion as a front to justify their discrimination against many people. I believe views are changing, some of these hatreds are disappearing.. and yes those with stupid, idiotic opinions seem to find their way to voice their opinion the loudest. Maybe the others in this thread took it as you generalizing against ALL religious people, I did not.... I took it as you pointing out the misguided who use it to harm others. Which NOTHING in any religions should be used to harm anyone.

 

Religious people are not always homophobes, merely following what their god (which I think is utter nonsense, God does not exist, if he did bad things wouldn't happen to people) tells them, fair enough. But I love it when you get some who turn up to pride to make a fuss, heavily outnumbered by people who are probably going to get laid that night thinking this guy or girl is a god(ess) haha.

I don't hold it against them, my views are different. BUT I do love to tell them god says to love thy fellow man, and that's what I'm doing

 

And religion, by the way, is a CHOICE. People choose to believe in a religion. It is not an innate characteristic of someone. Sexual orientation: NOT A CHOICE. The two are not remotely comparable.[/QUOTE]

yes, religion is a choice, a choice that many LGBT people choose to follow.

---------- Post added 27th Apr 2014 at 08:30 PM ----------

the funny part is how much we agree on this statement.

 

So as I said, to interpret the Judeo-Christian Bible as affirming rather than condemning of homosexuals requires extreme eisegesis.

 

Yes, Everyone has their own interpretation ...which they are entitled too... and not everyone's will match, I still agree with you that it is no reason to force it or use it to discriminate others, which some don't understand. In a place like America, with a freedom of religion, and from it, No one has any right to place their views on others and make it law, which I believe is happening now. Those who oppose it grow weaker everyday, their message is obviously not working on gaining anything. Its just a matter of whether you choose to let what others says upset/affect you. Which I have pretty much got, I could care less *you seem to have it too*.... Now if just everyone could have that. People will always have some form of hate in them, don't let it get to you *this is more for the OP* In the grand scheme of your life, they are nothing, Hope this helps

 

That's an awful lot of reading. And boring at that. Moving on..

 

Rakkaus, the problem started with this sentence. I'm pretty sure that's what Captain Clyde didn't like, it's pretty judgmental.

 

Any time religion is brought up, this is what happens. I personally think that is pretty sad. Yes, many of us have had negative experiences with religious individuals, but is that a reason to spew hate speech towards an entire group of people? Hate solves nothing. What solves issues is open and not heated dialogue.

The thing that we need to remember here is respect... and not much of that has been shown in this thread.

 

..........Anyways back to the purpose of this thread:

1) There is absolutely no validity to their hatred. I cannot stress this enough. They may feel like they are entitled to it, but they are not AT ALL.

2) There isn't really any great trick to dealing with religious homophobes. Generally religious people who are very homophobic have their views very set in place because of years of teaching. This teaching causes over time really adds up. The sad fact is that: there is no easy way to break through to them. You can't just give them a quick one-liner and expect them to change a part of their beliefs that they have built their entire life around. However, IMO one of the only things that works is RELATIONSHIPS. When these people are exposed to something they think is wrong, they react obviously negatively. It's very easy for them to do that in day-to-day encounters with people who really don't matter to them. But what about if it was a good friend of theirs, or maybe even their own child?? Things aren't as easy for them to process then. Instead of just passing the person off as "bad", they now have to reconcile their love/relationship with you with their religious beliefs. I hope that makes sense.

I have a pretty decent amount of experience with this and will flat out say that some people will not be able to reconcile their beliefs. It sucks, but it's an unfortunate side-effect of some people's religious beliefs. However, it has been my experience that many people's views will change when they have a relationship with someone in the queer community. I'll give two examples of changes that I have seen personally:

1) One of my best friends was always pretty homophobic. He thought gays were annoying, gross, and shoving it down people's throats. I came out to him, and it was kinda awkward at first. He was literally stunned. He said he had trouble sleeping thinking about it the few days following. However, with time, he was able to reconcile his beliefs with his relationship with me.

2) My parents. They had major issues with me being gay and definitely did not react at all positively to me coming out. They just needed time to reconcile their beliefs with their love for me. It is taking a lot of time, but they are getting better.

Hope this helps!

 

Well, I hope I was not disrespectful toward anyone. If in any way I was, I apologize to anyone I might have came across as disrespectful towards.

This is extremely helpful, Couldn't have worded it better myself.

 

They are people like you. They have opinions and the right to endorse them.

I remember having an extremely fundamentalist geography teacher. Sure, she quoted the Bible during lessons at times, but otherwise she had been an extremely pleasant, polite, and kind person, and didn't hate anyone. She believed homosexuality was a sin - she considered it disharmonious - but did not say gays should be persecuted somehow.