LGBTQ Activists are the worst allies

[Dr. C]

I am a half white half Korean, bipolar high functioning autistic LBGTQ Christian writer.

I am talking to someone from my church about a story tha I am writing.

its been a long and hard battle to reconcile my sexual orientation, my faith and people who refuse to acknowledge the struggles of disabilities and mental health issues preferring tot think of me as a burden at best and weak mindEd and lacking faith at worst. 

After spending many years in anguish I finally have found peace with a beautiful story that tries to tackle the impossible task of reconciling my faith, my orientation and my disabilities.

its been quite therapeutic to do so but sharing my story with a fellow church member who is pro-LGBT asks me why none of the kids in the story are LGBTQ .

I told her plainly that,  I wrote a chapter where one of the antagonists, who uses intense bullying as a weapon to accomplish his end goals, vandalized the side of a green house owned by the family of a budding child florist prodigy that says “Flowers are for f*****s” insinuating you must be gay to love flowers that much. In story, he is not gay but a cancer survivor who devotes his entire life to growing flowers for sick children after he woke up to beautiful floral arrangements in his hospital room and that, being so sick he can barely move, found comfort in the natural beauty around him and that comfort helped him to sleep better and gave him the will to continue with treatments that seemed hopeless. He genuinely believes that the flowers saved his life. 

I then explain to her that I feel like If the protagonist posing the question what sick and twisted person would call someone a gay slur for liking flowers isn’t enough of a pro LGBTQ message then I don’t know what is and I tell her that sexual orientation is secondary in a story about children and that I’m not opposed to the idea but I just didn’t feel that love and romance in a story with children would be incredibly appropriate unless handled delicately.

Then she “points out” that kids “know” from a young age and, being selectively closeted for reasons I’ll get into tell her that, few kids know what they want and shouldn’t be expected to. That’s what puberty is for. 

As an LGBTQ person, I get SO mad at the fact that this push to normalize sexual orientation completely disregards my own sexual development. Did heteronormative media give me false impressions about how I’m supposed to act? Yes. Did I have some dubious crushes on girls in elementary school because I liked the fantasy of happily ever after? Yeah it happened. Do I wish that I had grown up in a more gay accepting society? Absolutely not.

I am the writer I am today because my overactive imagination was allowed to grow and flourish in a social environment that pushed TOYS upon me NOT SEX.

Im so sick of everyone saying that kids “know” what they want that young l. For fuck sakes, I had a nigh fanatical obsession with Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl (Canada had a very bizarre airing schedule on YTV of 60s Batman followed by the Power Rangers back when Power Rangers was airing its first season) and couldn’t get enough of the BTAS’ Catwoman to the point that she outranks even the Joker in favorite Batman villains TO THIS DAY for me and I still ended up realizing my orientation when I started feeling the hots for a straight childhood friend when I was 16 with the first signs of even the possibility of my sexuality heading in that direction when I found myself fascinated with Elijah Wood during the LOTR era at 15 in ways that offended an older Christian taking care of me. 

To anyone who considers themselves an ally, let me tell you. No it wasn’t perfect but sexualizing children to accomplish political goals is sick and wrong not because being gay is bad. It’s because you’re perpetuating a false narrative about how children actually develop. Does that mean such children don’t exist? Absolutely not but, as a rule, children are more interested in playing pretend than oogling and crushing on their preferred sex. 

Also, calling people out for their straight privilege when someone is speaking hate speech against gay people is problematic to begin with because when you place a moral burden on somebody to come out when they could be living in a toxic home environment and in full on self preservation mode... do you honestly self righteously think as a well off straight person who grew up with no substantial risk of being made a homeless teen because you brought home the wrong partner (racism issues notwithstanding) have any right to run around trying to blast people for just trying to survive in the environment they are living in? 

Have you ever stopped to consider that someone like myself who has spent years dissecting homophobic scriptures and hiding my sexuality from people to share my research without suspicion of ulterior motive doesn’t WANT to come out until a cause I feel is higher than myself is done? 

But now that you’ve jumped in and burned bridges that I was successfully building, do you honestly think I want anything to do with feminists and liberal idiots who are so hellbent on tearing down churches they can’t be bothered to research pro LGBTQ biblical apologetics?

No the truth is you stopped speaking for me the day you decided that destroying people’s lives was the way to teach them about love. 

I came out to my friend who was raised in a very conservative household recently because he was feeling so vilified after being nothing but nice to people and unknowingly being someone who stopped me from humoring the possibility of suicide because of hardships I was going through  just from being in my life,  not because I wanted to... but because I felt my hand was forced at that point. 

Respectfully I think that anyone who displays enough goodness that it keeps me alive has my tacit blessing to oppose gay marriage even if I disagree with them strongly. 

Some things are bigger than sexuality. Some things are bigger than calling people out.

Children have a right to their innocence and the creativity fostered in an innocent environment and LGBTQ people have the right to stay in the closet if they want to. That is OUR choice.

By all means people should be able to express who they are but even criminals get the 5th Amendment. 

To oppress one person in a community is to oppress them all. It’s time that so called LGBTQ activists stope prattling on to me about patriarchy and own that calling out closeted LGBTQ people for being straight and hijacking out developmental psychology and forcing me to CHOOSE once again between my faith and my sexual orientation because you just love a good internet flame war   is homophobia by any other name. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Dr. C
Spelling/grammar

[Ashe02]

Didn't think I would see such an interesting thread be made today. It hit very close to home for me. 

Yes some "allies" ironically enough end up hurting the people which they claim to want to support. Not all allies are good allies.

Also your story sounds like it would be a good read 

[Heir of Dragons and Beasts]

This inspiring yet interesting for me as a gay guy.

Is your story at any bookstores?

[Anacybele]

I've seen your posts and threads before and I couldn't really grasp what you were talking about much of the time then. But this time I totally get it and even agree with you. You don't just shove certain sexual orientation or gender identity or racial stuff where it doesn't belong. That's doing it wrong and forcing it in just for the sake of it. It's like how they decided to make Green Lantern gay all of a sudden or Human Torch black in the most recent Fantastic Four movie when he was always white beforehand (which was awful overall, I heard). And have they made any originally black characters go white instead? Nope. I bet because people would get offended and call it "whitewashing"! Which is technically correct. So why is it okay to make a white guy black, but not a black guy white? It's bull. Elsa from Disney's Frozen needs no love interest, she's meant to be a strong independent woman. The romance side of this should stick to Anna and Kristoff. Elsa doesn't need a girlfriend OR a boyfriend and I wish people would stop asking that she be lesbian when her story isn't meant to touch the subject of romance.

And I'm an asexual high-functioning autistic, so I kinda fall in the LGBT+ community myself. I also didn't even really realize I'm asexual until a few years ago when my friend helped me notice that I had all the characteristics of it. Annoys me how my parents, in particular my stepdad, reacted when I told them my sexual orientation too. They still love me, don't get me wrong. But my stepdad more or less went "you've never had sex, so you don't know if you really don't want it, you just have to give it a chance blah blah blah." No, I just don't want it and for various reasons. My mom seemed to be disappointed that this meant I could never give her a grandchild. She technically does have one though, my stepbrother's kid. Sure, she's not a blood-related grandchild. But it's still family. I will admit it's a bit disappointing that I can't give my mom a biological one, and I do feel bad I can't give my real dad one either (he never had any other children besides me). But this is how it's turned out, I'm afraid.

There's no way kid me would've ever figured out I'm asexual.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Anacybele

[Rezzy]

I'll give this a further in depth read when I get the chance.  I'm a bit of an extreme minority in this department and will try to share my thoughts.

[Shoblongoo]

I think as a general cautionary tale, the old saying "My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" has to apply here.

The LGBTQ activist ally is exactly that--an ally.

Someone who is going to have your back in the big fights where it really counts. On your rights. On your remedies for violation of your rights. In opposing the retrograde, regressive elements of society that want to take your rights away and go back to a time where you'd be treated as mentally ill if you openly displayed your sexual identity + forced back into the closet.  

The left in general, I've noticed, has this unfortunate tendency to sometimes be unable to see the forest through the trees.

And to get bogged down in these little micro-schisms, where people who should be united in common cause over the BIG things that they agree on + the need to present a united front against the regressives get caught up in opposing each other on comparatively minor points of contention. (and in so doing, making it that much easier for the regressives to run roughshod over them)   

If someone is right on the overarching issues of:

1)  Its not a sin or a mental illness; its just people who want equal protection under the law trying to live their lives
2)  They should be treated with the same courtesy and respect you would show anyone else
3) They should have equal protection under the law 
4) To the extent they do not have equal protection under the law, the law should change

Then honestly--where they're at is where we have common cause on the BIG things that matter. (versus a sizable chunk of the population that isn't even there yet)

Everything else is secondary or tertiary. 

And there can be disagreements and differences in point-of-view and life experience and dynamic conversations between allies.

But pushing them away and insulting them over tertiary matters is--counterproductive. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Shoblongoo

[kremelover]

3 hours ago, Dr. C said:

I am a half white half Korean, bipolar high functioning autistic LBGTQ Christian writer.

I am talking to someone from my church about a story tha I am writing.

its been a long and hard battle to reconcile my sexual orientation, my faith and people who refuse to acknowledge the struggles of disabilities and mental health issues preferring tot think of me as a burden at best and weak mindEd and lacking faith at worst. 

After spending many years in anguish I finally have found peace with a beautiful story that tries to tackle the impossible task of reconciling my faith, my orientation and my disabilities.

its been quite therapeutic to do so but sharing my story with a fellow church member who is pro-LGBT asks me why none of the kids in the story are LGBTQ .

I told her plainly that,  I wrote a chapter where one of the antagonists, who uses intense bullying as a weapon to accomplish his end goals, vandalized the side of a green house owned by the family of a budding child florist prodigy that says “Flowers are for f*****s” insinuating you must be gay to love flowers that much. In story, he is not gay but a cancer survivor who devotes his entire life to growing flowers for sick children after he woke up to beautiful floral arrangements in his hospital room and that, being so sick he can barely move, found comfort in the natural beauty around him and that comfort helped him to sleep better and gave him the will to continue with treatments that seemed hopeless. He genuinely believes that the flowers saved his life. 

I then explain to her that I feel like If the protagonist posing the question what sick and twisted person would call someone a gay slur for liking flowers isn’t enough of a pro LGBTQ message then I don’t know what is and I tell her that sexual orientation is secondary in a story about children and that I’m not opposed to the idea but I just didn’t feel that love and romance in a story with children would be incredibly appropriate unless handled delicately.

Then she “points out” that kids “know” from a young age and, being selectively closeted for reasons I’ll get into tell her that, few kids know what they want and shouldn’t be expected to. That’s what puberty is for. 

As an LGBTQ person, I get SO mad at the fact that this push to normalize sexual orientation completely disregards my own sexual development. Did heteronormative media give me false impressions about how I’m supposed to act? Yes. Did I have some dubious crushes on girls in elementary school because I liked the fantasy of happily ever after? Yeah it happened. Do I wish that I had grown up in a more gay accepting society? Absolutely not.

I am the writer I am today because my overactive imagination was allowed to grow and flourish in a social environment that pushed TOYS upon me NOT SEX.

Im so sick of everyone saying that kids “know” what they want that young l. For fuck sakes, I had a nigh fanatical obsession with Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl (Canada had a very bizarre airing schedule on YTV of 60s Batman followed by the Power Rangers back when Power Rangers was airing its first season) and couldn’t get enough of the BTAS’ Catwoman to the point that she outranks even the Joker in favorite Batman villains TO THIS DAY for me and I still ended up realizing my orientation when I started feeling the hots for a straight childhood friend when I was 16 with the first signs of even the possibility of my sexuality heading in that direction when I found myself fascinated with Elijah Wood during the LOTR era at 15 in ways that offended an older Christian taking care of me. 

To anyone who considers themselves an ally, let me tell you. No it wasn’t perfect but sexualizing children to accomplish political goals is sick and wrong not because being gay is bad. It’s because you’re perpetuating a false narrative about how children actually develop. Does that mean such children don’t exist? Absolutely not but, as a rule, children are more interested in playing pretend than oogling and crushing on their preferred sex. 

Also, calling people out for their straight privilege when someone is speaking hate speech against gay people is problematic to begin with because when you place a moral burden on somebody to come out when they could be living in a toxic home environment and in full on self preservation mode... do you honestly self righteously think as a well off straight person who grew up with no substantial risk of being made a homeless teen because you brought home the wrong partner (racism issues notwithstanding) have any right to run around trying to blast people for just trying to survive in the environment they are living in? 

Have you ever stopped to consider that someone like myself who has spent years dissecting homophobic scriptures and hiding my sexuality from people to share my research without suspicion of ulterior motive doesn’t WANT to come out until a cause I feel is higher than myself is done? 

But now that you’ve jumped in and burned bridges that I was successfully building, do you honestly think I want anything to do with feminists and liberal idiots who are so hellbent on tearing down churches they can’t be bothered to research pro LGBTQ biblical apologetics?

No the truth is you stopped speaking for me the day you decided that destroying people’s lives was the way to teach them about love. 

I came out to my friend who was raised in a very conservative household recently because he was feeling so vilified after being nothing but nice to people and unknowingly being someone who stopped me from humoring the possibility of suicide because of hardships I was going through  just from being in my life,  not because I wanted to... but because I felt my hand was forced at that point. 

Respectfully I think that anyone who displays enough goodness that it keeps me alive has my tacit blessing to oppose gay marriage even if I disagree with them strongly. 

Some things are bigger than sexuality. Some things are bigger than calling people out.

Children have a right to their innocence and the creativity fostered in an innocent environment and LGBTQ people have the right to stay in the closet if they want to. That is OUR choice.

By all means people should be able to express who they are but even criminals get the 5th Amendment. 

To oppress one person in a community is to oppress them all. It’s time that so called LGBTQ activists stope prattling on to me about patriarchy and own that calling out closeted LGBTQ people for being straight and hijacking out developmental psychology and forcing me to CHOOSE once again between my faith and my sexual orientation because you just love a good internet flame war   is homophobia by any other name. 

I appreciate your story!

[Dr. C]

4 hours ago, EdelgardHresvelgTargaryen said:

This inspiring yet interesting for me as a gay guy.

Is your story at any bookstores?

No but since you threw the idea out there maybe I will consider it. 

2 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I think as a general cautionary tale, the old saying "My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" has to apply here.

The LGBTQ activist ally is exactly that--an ally.

Someone who is going to have your back in the big fights where it really counts. On your rights. On your remedies for violation of your rights. In opposing the retrograde, regressive elements of society that want to take your rights away and go back to a time where you'd be treated as mentally ill if you openly displayed your sexual identity + forced back into the closet.  

The left in general, I've noticed, has this unfortunate tendency to sometimes be unable to see the forest through the trees.

And to get bogged down in these little micro-schisms, where people who should be united in common cause over the BIG things that they agree on + the need to present a united front against the regressives get caught up in opposing each other on comparatively minor points of contention. (and in so doing, making it that much easier for the regressives to run roughshod over them)   

If someone is right on the overarching issues of:

1)  Its not a sin or a mental illness; its just people who want equal protection under the law trying to live their lives
2)  They should be treated with the same courtesy and respect you would show anyone else
3) They should have equal protection under the law 
4) To the extent they do not have equal protection under the law, the law should change

Then honestly--where they're at is where we have common cause on the BIG things that matter. (versus a sizable chunk of the population that isn't even there yet)

Everything else is secondary or tertiary. 

And there can be disagreements and differences in point-of-view and life experience and dynamic conversations between allies.

But pushing them away and insulting them over tertiary matters is--counterproductive. 

Respectfully it ain’t no 80-20 split on the front of intellectual laziness concerning the Bible. 

Atheists don’t get free reign to bash religion and call them allies of mine. 

I can appreciate the first for trees statement but even saying that willful ignorance of a faith that is not your own is a  tertiary issue just burned down a whole rainforest. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Parrhesia

[Shoblongoo]

15 minutes ago, Dr. C said:

 

Respectfully it ain’t no 80-20 split on the front of intellectual laziness concerning the Bible. 

Atheists don’t get free reign to bash religion and call them allies of mine. 

I can appreciate the first for trees statement but even saying that willful ignorance of a faith that is not your own is a  tertiary issue just burned down a whole rainforest. 

Okay--how about a pro-LGBT atheist whose read the bible, has a learned understanding of 'scripture,' and has turned away from it due to knowing rejection of what it says rather than lazy ignorance of same. 

And who completely rejects faith and theistic values.  

And who believes that  the LGBT community would have more rights + that society would be better off as a whole if organized religion were less prevalent and theistic values had less influence on society.

But who respects your decision as an individual to make religion an important part of your life, and isn't going to try to tell you that you're doing something wrong by valuing scripture or that you need to 'choose' between your sexual identity and your faith. 

Acceptable??? 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Shoblongoo

[Strullemia]

I find your post honestly somewhat confusing because you're talking about many different things.

You don't like LGBTQ+ allies because they don't like religion? I mean I'm gonna be honest, I don't like religion and I think it's overall caused more misery than good and I'm very much left and stand with LGBTQ+ people. I recognize that the message of the bible is positive but I think that many people who tend to read the bible ignore these messages for their own toxic viewpoints.

And I'm not sure what you're saying with the kids part. I know someone at work who has a son that used to be a girl and that boy knew as soon as he was 10 that he wanted to be a boy. The boy never had his innocence stolen as far as I know. I don't know where you live but normal left leaning people don't force their children to become a certain sexuality.

[Dr. C]

Just now, Hekselka said:

I find your post honestly somewhat confusing because you're talking about many different things.

You don't like LGBTQ+ allies because they don't like religion? I mean I'm gonna be honest, I don't like religion and I think it's overall caused more misery than good and I'm very much left and stand with LGBTQ+ people. I recognize that the message of the bible is positive but I think that many people who tend to read the bible ignore these messages for their own toxic viewpoints.

And I'm not sure what you're saying with the kids part. I know someone at work who has a son that used to be a girl and that boy knew as soon as he was 10 that he wanted to be a boy. The boy never had his innocence stolen as far as I know. I don't know where you live but normal left leaning people don't force their children to become a certain sexuality.

As I said there is no cut and dry formula here. You can’t put people in boxes but people look at exceptional cases in the rights community and call that the rule and as a former psych major I do find that wildly frustrating. 

My beef is not with a child who genuinely wants to be reassigned. That does happen. My beef is this attempt to enlighten people with misinformation. Respectfully the child you talk about is not the norm statistically speaking and the function of statistics is not to generalize and stereotype but to help the most amount of people possible and when you flip the stays that means you are helping the LEAST number of children possible. 

And  in my opinion there are plenty of atheists in the world making you look foolish for suggesting religion is the cause of misery.

I will agree with you on one point though that people will ignore what they don’t want to see but that is a human trait not a religious one. 

My point is I am all me faith and sexual orientation so if you’re going to speak for my sexual orientation  and bash my faith, then simply put, NOT HELPING THE CAUSE.

I don’t have any qualms with disagreement regarding faith but I have a very simple litmus test for religious intolerance and it’s this: 

Are you claiming religious faith is bad for society? 

Its very simple. I spent a lot of toe in religious debate circles and I’m not lying when I say 95% of them felt they were better than me because of it and I can only explain so many times why I never killed a Muslim in the crusades before I had to put that safeguard in place.

 

10 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Okay--how about a pro-LGBT atheist whose read the bible, has a learned understanding of 'scripture,' and has turned away from it due to knowing rejection of what it says rather than lazy ignorance of same. 

And who completely rejects faith and theistic values.  

And who believes that  the LGBT community would have more rights + that society would be better off as a whole if organized religion were less prevalent and theistic values had less influence on society.

But who respects your decision as an individual to make religion an important part of your life, and isn't going to try to tell you that you're doing something wrong by valuing scripture or that you need to 'choose' between your sexual identity and your faith. 

Acceptable??? 

As I said above, this worldview does not hold water to me. Religion is bad for society is incredulously foolish to me.

I guarantee you that the people trying to ruin people’s lves for the cause are very much majority  secular so what’s to stop me from flipping the script and pointing at SJWs and saying. Atheism is the problem? 

It is as I said before I am a Christian and LGBTQ+ these two things are not compartmentalized and if you want to present any credible front for LGBT rights then see why 

1 Corinthians 13  makes that impossible if people consider the evil people that destroy lives for a cause allies.

I’m not going to go preachy on you but very clearly, in the absence of love is a clanging symbol that makes a lot of noise but means nothing. That’s why the present state of affairs is irreconcilable with my faith. Your actions force me to choose what your words claim is not the case. Not you specifically obviously. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

If I have this right, you're writing a story that brushes upon perceived queer behaviors, and your fellow churchgoer asks "how about some actual LGBTQ characters?". And that suggestion set you off? I don't see what's offensive about it. They didn't demand you put such characters in the story. I understand their viewpoint conflicts with your own view of the world (the idea that kids can know their sexuality at a pre-pubescent age), but neither of you are the psychological authority on this subject. No gay person can speak on behalf of all gay people, it's just your opinion formed by your own experiences. Your experiences as being a half-white, half-korean, bipolar high functioning autistic LBGTQ Christian writer. At some point you both are going to have to respectfully disagree.

And the topic title is a dumpster fire. 

[Dr. C]

16 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

If I have this right, you're writing a story that brushes upon perceived queer behaviors, and your fellow churchgoer asks "how about some actual LGBTQ characters?". And that suggestion set you off? I don't see what's offensive about it. They didn't demand you put such characters in the story. I understand their viewpoint conflicts with your own view of the world (the idea that kids can know their sexuality at a pre-pubescent age), but neither of you are the psychological authority on this subject. No gay person can speak on behalf of all gay people, it's just your opinion formed by your own experiences. Your experiences as being a half-white, half-korean, bipolar high functioning autistic LBGTQ Christian writer. At some point you both are going to have to respectfully disagree.

And the topic title is a dumpster fire. 

I wasn’t set off by the person.

i was set off by the fact that someone who is sincerely seeking to be an ally after years of cognitive dissonance isreadib the same misinformation that keeps getting spread 

I don’t claim to be an expert in psychology but I did do psych major courses and political science courses.

The left keeps spreading actual misinformation and suppressing facts they perceive as x-phobic.

Im not claiming the right is any better but here’s how I see it.

You’re once foolish if you claim love and do hate but you’re twice foolish if you reject someone doing hate, claim love and then make your same mistakes over agin but with different vocabulary.

The title is not a dumpster fire. It’s my opinion.

I am actually a fairly open minded person when it comes to other faiths. Heck I was the sole Christian invited to every single Muslim ever at my university because I asked questions and did not want to say ignorant things about heir faith even if I didn’t agree with it and they liked that and respected it. 

However, I will not listen to a thesis of love backed by hatred Christian ior secular . The moment you say the ends justify the means you are no ally of LGBTQ people.

in Christianity we have names for such beings that whisper to destroy people's lives and none of them are flattering.

So my position is simple. Your facts however factually correct they are are 100% wrong if your motives are tied to hatred and that holds doubly true for the Bible.

Now that may sound superstitious to you but here’s the thing, why  does it matter if it does? Are you saying you want to live I fear of losing your job over saying the wrong thing at the wrong places the wrong time? 

When it comes to facts I’m all ears but when it comes to mercy and compassion and selflessness I’m all in.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Dr. C
Typi

[Ertrick36]

I'm not a Christian myself (in fact, I'm barely religious at all; I identify as religiously agnostic), but there are some things I believe.

One is that we're all born as sins.  As infants, and as children, we are selfish and self-centered - we see the world as revolving around us, not the other way around.  What makes us change our ways is our parents and/or caretakers.  Our parents/caretakers teach us to look out for others, to understand and appreciate them and their struggles, and to lend a hand to those in need.  If they don't we stay selfish jerks for the rest of our lives.

So it stands to reason that if we start out with a self-centered outlook on life that we'd base our views on our own personal experiences, which a community has a substantial impact on.  On the one hand, we have the old Christian Conservative community that has always believed homosexuality to be a sin, that gay people are out to molest their children, and those seeking LGBTQ rights are working for the Devil.  On the other hand, there's the metropolitan secular Liberal community that views religion as a means of oppression, that lauds any children who come out as gay or trans, and believes the Christian Conservatives are fools who fell for the lies of Fox News.

The issue here is there's a politico-cultural divide.  People were raised in these stagnant communities with only singular mindsets, and were never exposed to different communities with alternative ways of thinking.  It's "us versus them", and it results in people plugging their ears singing "lalala" really loudly until the "other side" shuts up.  And people in these communities that do feel differently from their own communities are discouraged from ever speaking out because they fear they will immediately be shut down and ostracized.  This goes both ways.

One time in my supremely liberal haven of a high school (back when I was attending, anyway), we were asked to reveal how we leaned politically.  Most of us (including myself) identified as liberal... but there was that one kid who said he was conservative.  And the entire class booed him - even I did.  We didn't know what he had to say, what specific views he had, or why he felt the way he did; hell, he may have just said he was a conservative because he just felt like saying it.  We just knew he said he was a conservative, and that's all we needed to pounce on him and treat him like a strange beast in our territory.

Many of us never truly expand our minds beyond our immediate benefit.  We don't learn to listen to others or understand their struggles.  When an LGBTQ ally says gay people should come out, they speak from a place of privilege and from a place where coming out isn't very dangerous.  But they also speak knowing at least in part that people's views change from personal experience, and the most personal experience a straight man can have with the LGBTQ community is speaking to someone who is gay.  They know that ultimately they're worthless in a struggle for gay rights because the communities they live in are already accepting of gay people and don't really need change, and other forms of activism will be too impersonal to change people's minds.  At the same time though, they don't realize the very real negative consequences coming out could have for someone in a gated community that rejects homosexuality, especially for teens from such communities.

I almost seldom ever see actual gay people say "hey, other gay people need to come out!"  That's because no matter the community, a gay person always feels like it's a struggle to come out, and they understand.  For some in accepted communities, it's that they don't want to make a huge deal out of coming out - they fear that perhaps their parents will overreact and tell all of their friends about it.  For others, such as my former lesbian friend (former because they transitioned), they happen to live in a pocket of an accepting community where it's not accepted (e.g. the parents aren't accepting).

Another belief I have that is taught in Christian scriptures is that we should love one another and seek to better ourselves before judging others.  Loving one another means understanding them and listening to them, then lending your shoulder for them when they need it.  Through this act of love, we both help those around us and enrich ourselves.  Some would say I don't add a lot to conversations... that's because I listen and try to understand.  It's more important to listen than it is to talk.  The activists you dislike choose talking over listening, and thus they think they have the right to tell you how you should contribute to their cause which requires sacrifice.  I believe in gay rights, but I don't believe in forcibly tearing people apart from their own communities and families.  As a straight male LGBTQ ally, I understand and support a gay person's personal choice to stay closeted until they're ready.

[Hero_Lucina]

Honestly this whole thing is confusing for me to read but from what I can decipher, the issue is that people are just toxic in general because they aren't raised properly so they don't know how to act. Instead of focusing on innocence and imagination, kids are now interested in boobs and fortnite because that's what they're exposed to early on, and not taught in a respectable manner

 

Short Hand: People need to raise their kids properly instead of shoving a screen in their face

[Strullemia]

3 minutes ago, Dr. C said:

As I said there is no cut and dry formula here. You can’t put people in boxes but people look at exceptional cases in the rights community and call that the rule and as a former psych major I do find that wildly frustrating. 

My beef is not with a child who genuinely wants to be reassigned. That does happen. My beef is this attempt to enlighten people with misinformation. Respectfully the child you talk about is not the norm statistically speaking and the function of statistics is not to generalize and stereotype but to help the most amount of people possible and when you flip the stays that means you are helping the LEAST number of children possible. 

And  in my opinion there are plenty of atheists in the world making you look foolish for suggesting religion is the cause of misery.

I will agree with you on one point though that people will ignore what they don’t want to see but that is a human trait not a religious one. 

My point is I am all me faith and sexual orientation so if you’re going to speak for my sexual orientation  and bash my faith, then simply put, NOT HELPING THE CAUSE.

I don’t have any qualms with disagreement regarding faith but I have a very simple litmus test for religious intolerance and it’s this: 

Are you claiming religious faith is bad for society? 

Its very simple. I spent a lot of toe in religious debate circles and I’m not lying when I say 95% of them felt they were better than me because of it and I can only explain so many times why I never killed a Muslim in the crusades before I had to put that safeguard in place.

 

 

I see. I think I'm starting to understand what you're saying a bit better.

I think part of the problem is that there are more people in power that happen to be religious that also happen to have anti-LGBTQ+ views. A lot of religious people will use religion as an argument to stand against LGBTQ+ people. Of course anyone who really is religious would know that that doesn't make any sense but nonetheless it has been used as an argument against their rights which makes it somewhat difficult for the two to combine when a lot of LGBTQ+ people have been hurt by these people.

-Are you claiming religious faith is bad for society? 

No, I have a problem with religious people that use their religion as an excuse to hurt other people but I absolutely don't believe that religious faith is bad. I'm very much for their freedom of religions, and people that are against that bother me just as much (a lot of people tend to show very islamphobic behavior in my country and I call them out just as much).

I hope that makes sense.

-Its very simple. I spent a lot of toe in religious debate circles and I’m not lying when I say 95% of them felt they were better than me because of it and I can only explain so many times why I never killed a Muslim in the crusades before I had to put that safeguard in place.

Those people are idiots. I don't believe in any religion myself but I don't have a problem with anyone's belief and if you're really tolerant and believe in left leaning ideals then you should support both religious and/or LGBTQ+ people.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

25 minutes ago, Dr. C said:

The title is not a dumpster fire. It’s my opinion.

And look at how many people who made the effort to post express genuine confusion what the topic is about or what discussion you're trying to hold through this rant. This sub forum is not a blog dump.

Quote

So my position is simple. Your facts however factually correct they are are 100% wrong if your motives are tied to hatred and that holds doubly true for the Bible.

Now that may sound superstitious to you but here’s the thing, why  does it matter if it does? Are you saying you want to live I fear of losing your job over saying the wrong thing at the wrong places the wrong time? 

When it comes to facts I’m all ears but when it comes to mercy and compassion and selflessness I’m all in.

That may sound superstitious to...? Who are you talking to? I have expressed no opinions beyond what I think of the thread's title. But trying to make sense of this story you're trying to tell, I'm not surprised to see you putting words in other peoples' mouths. Let people speak for themselves and stop judging them by labels. You don't know me.

[Parrhesia]

13 minutes ago, Hero_Lucina said:

Honestly this whole thing is confusing for me to read but from what I can decipher, the issue is that people are just toxic in general because they aren't raised properly so they don't know how to act. Instead of focusing on innocence and imagination, kids are now interested in boobs and fortnite because that's what they're exposed to early on, and not taught in a respectable manner

Short Hand: People need to raise their kids properly instead of shoving a screen in their face

You realise that people have been bitching that kids these days haven't been raised right since at least Ancient Greece, right... ?

I'd firmly encourage the OP to clarify their points and make more effort to engage with people rather than talking across them. I'll be back tonight to see if the situation's improved.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Parrhesia

[Shoblongoo]

1 hour ago, Dr. C said:

It is as I said before I am a Christian and LGBTQ+ these two things are not compartmentalized and if you want to present any credible front for LGBT rights then see why 

1 Corinthians 13  makes that impossible if people consider the evil people that destroy lives for a cause allies.

I’m not going to go preachy on you but very clearly, in the absence of love is a clanging symbol that makes a lot of noise but means nothing. That’s why the present state of affairs is irreconcilable with my faith. Your actions force me to choose what your words claim is not the case. Not you specifically obviously. 

...If I may interject here...

My earliest childhood memories go back to 3-4 years old.

My first memories aren't of my parents; they're of my teachers and classmates at preschool. (A private Hebrew preschool. Where prayer and religious instruction were part of the daily routine)

I think my first real memory of my parents may actually be coming home from preschool one day scared and confused, at 4 years old, because I wanted to tell my mother that I don't think I believe in God. And I had absolutely no idea how to approach the subject in an intelligible manner. (All I really understood at that point was God is the greatest thing--he made everything and loves everyone--and you're supposed to love God with all your heart. Loving God with all your heart is what good people do. Bad people don't love God.)

What I wanted to say was "I don't think God is real."

But of course at 4 years old my language proficiency was--not that good. 

So what I actually wound  up going up to mother and telling her was something to the effect of "the voices in my head are saying bad things about God"  ('Thoughts.' What I of course meant by the voice in my head was 'thoughts.' I didn't know thats what they were called. So instead of saying I had thoughts I said voices in my head. Lovely.) 

That went...exactly as well as you can imagine it would...

And again. Thats my earliest childhood memory of my parents.

...lovely...
__________

Thats a conversation my daughter will never have to have with me. She can join a church or a mosque or hail satan; as long as she's treating people right and has good values, I will respect whatever choice she makes.

If she asks me what I believe I won't lie to her--I'll say God is a fairy tale for grown-ups and all religions are scams--but I will encourage her to explore her own beliefs and discover for herself if she believes what I believe or believes something else. 

And I sincerely hope she grows up with a better first memory of her father.

You, however, talk about faith as though its the atheist's rebuke of the theist that causes emotional harm and mental anguish.

And you base that solely on your own life experience, as a member of the LGBT community also trying to be a member of the Christian community.

And you have not even begun to consider that your's is not the definitive account.  

Or that forcing faith upon children who do not wish to believe is a symmetrical harm to mocking the faith of believers.

Or that the LGBT community as a whole leans the way it leans because faith being forced upon children who do not wish to believe is by far the more prevalent of the two harms. 

1 hour ago, Dr. C said:

I guarantee you that the people trying to ruin people’s lves for the cause are very much majority  secular

Yeah--that isn't true.  

I take you at your word that this was your own personal life experience.

But extrapolating the general statement that you've just extrapolated from said experience is grievous error. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Shoblongoo

[Dr. Tarrasque]

1 hour ago, Dr. C said:

I guarantee you that the people trying to ruin people’s lives for the cause are very much majority  secular.

Bull fucking shit.

It is religious people who are arguing that kids will be messed up if they have 2 parents of the same gender and seek to deny same-gender couples children from a large pool of orphans that they themselves aren't even tapping to sufficiently, effectively impeding the orphans' and same sex couples' pursuit of happiness.

It is religious people who seek to allow employers to fire someone just because they're LGBTQ.

It is religious people that the orange turd in the white is pandering to in his military trans ban.

It is religious people that have long fostered the culture in which it was such a sin for a man to be homosexual, leading to the man considered to be the father of Computer Science, Alan Turing, being persecuted and denied full recognition for his work during his lifetime. Said persecution lead to his suicide, if not for that, he would've been able to contribute more to the field and we may have been further ahead than we are today.

It is religious people who like when people like you are "useful idiots" to them.

 

I'd like to see you prove that folly of a statement if you can. History is against you on this.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Dr. Tarrasque

[Dr. C]

25 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

And look at how many people who made the effort to post express genuine confusion what the topic is about or what discussion you're trying to hold through this rant. This sub forum is not a blog dump.

That may sound superstitious to...? Who are you talking to? I have expressed no opinions beyond what I think of the thread's title. But trying to make sense of this story you're trying to tell, I'm not surprised to see you putting words in other peoples' mouths. Let people speak for themselves and stop judging them by labels. You don't know me.

Fair enough, My apologies. I’m very accustomed to such things being mocked and nipping it in the bud is a knee jerk reaction. 

19 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

...If I may interject here...

My earliest childhood memories go back to 3-4 years old.

My first memories aren't of my parents; they're of my teachers and classmates at preschool. (A private Hebrew preschool. Where prayer and religious instruction were part of the daily routine)

I think my first real memory of my parents may actually be coming home from preschool one day scared and confused, at 4 years old, because I wanted to tell my mother that I don't think I believe in God. And I had absolutely no idea how to approach the subject in an intelligible manner. (All I really understood at that point was God is the greatest thing--he made everything and loves everyone--and you're supposed to love God with all your heart. Loving God with all your heart is what good people do. Bad people don't love God.)

What I wanted to say was "I don't think God is real."

But of course at 4 years old my language proficiency was--not that good. 

So what I actually wound  up going up to mother and telling her was something to the effect of "the voices in my head are saying bad things about God"  ('Thoughts.' What I of course meant by the voice in my head was 'thoughts.' I didn't know thats what they were called. So instead of saying I had thoughts I said voices in my head. Lovely.) 

That went...exactly as well as you can imagine it would...

And again. Thats my earliest childhood memory of my parents.

...lovely...
__________

Thats a conversation my daughter will never have to have with me. She can join a church or a mosque or hail satan; as long as she's treating people right and has good values, I will respect whatever choice she makes.

If she asks me what I believe I won't lie to her--I'll say God is a fairy tale for grown-ups and all religions are scams--but I will encourage her to explore her own beliefs and discover for herself if she believes what I believe or believes something else. 

And I sincerely hope she grows up with a better first memory of her father.

You, however, talk about faith as though its the atheist's rebuke of the theist that causes emotional harm and mental anguish.

And you base that solely on your own life experience, as a member of the LGBT community also trying to be a member of the Christian community.

And you have not even begun to consider that your's is not the definitive account.  

Or that forcing faith upon children who do not wish to believe is a symmetrical harm to mocking the faith of believers.

Or that the LGBT community as a whole leans the way it leans because faith being forced upon children who do not wish to believe is by far the more prevalent of the two harms. 

Yeah--that isn't true.  

I take you at your word that this was your own personal life experience.

But extrapolating the general statement that you've just extrapolated from said experience is grievous error. 

I don’t belittle your experiences. In fact I’m good friends with an atheist with Jewish parentage.

I am sorry but I’ve been blamed for too many wars and atrocities I did not have a hand in and would never participate in for me to respect your beliefs on this issue.

The only correct position is the issue of character. People who are morally weak enough to feel the need to elevate themselves above other people by putting them down will always find a way. If they’re not born again, they have a feminist awakening. 

Diction changes idiots don’t and hate only begets hate. Rising above it is the only answer. I’ve seen enough of the dark underbelly of the church to understand why people don’t believe. 

What I don’t understand is calling out hypocrites from a position of hypocrisy usually with an air of being my intellectual superior while recycling the X was done in the name of God arguments while ignoring that Stalin was an atheist, World War I And World War II were eugenics wars at their core and funnily enough especially in the case of pre WW1 it wasn’t the Bible but the Origin of Species and EVOLUTION OF RACE that may have inspired colonists to behave in.a certain way but moral justification in that era didn’t come from science. It came from religion and so the fashion of the day for the scumbag was Christianity. 

I’m not interested in keeping score though. All I know that with the capacity of humanity for evil Beinf so extreme it takes more than something as weak and pathetic as mere human good to explain why we haven’t offed ourselves by now. 

Tell me a sob story involving religion and I can tell on without. I have early childhood memories as well and let me tell you I spent years blaming myself for not doing more for present my parents divorce because all those times they were yelling at each other and I thought it was some kind of game and would randomly yell myself... I carried this feeling that I should have seen it. I should have done something. I lived under a 20 years of silence from 4-24.

Believe me I know that kind Do pain but reactionary beliefs are a terrible answer that will only repeat the cycle.

I try to be compassionate but when it comes to people with beliefs like yourself, I can count on one hand and dare I say two fingers the number of times the person actually made sense and unfortunately you are one half of that. 

I get personal experience but you don’t know how many of conversations I’ve had. At least a thousand at this point. 

And now I face people claiming I was never a minority because I’m half white but that’s a different story.. I never dreamed I would ever live in a day and age where’s I would at at least white supremecists are “nice l” enough to acknowledge I’m a minority but I do. 

[Karimlan]

25 minutes ago, Dr. C said:

What I don’t understand is calling out hypocrites from a position of hypocrisy usually with an air of being my intellectual superior while recycling the X was done in the name of God arguments while ignoring that Stalin was an atheist...

I wouldn't go there, really. I'd say he played the atheist card like he did, through Molotov anyway, von Ribbentrop and the Nazis into a non-aggression pact that divided the Urals (along a pencil line, as Albert Speer in his Inside the Third Reich would put it) between the two of them. But, as the following link would tell you, he played the monastic card as well.

[Shoblongoo]

See this is where you actually have to delve into critical thinking. And distinguish between someone who is [A] did  vs. someone did because they are [A].

And that is a mental trap that people who just want to dunk all over the other side fall into.

-This person did [insert terrible thing here]. That person is  [insert belief here].
-That must mean that the belief causes the terrible thing.

Now just because you can point to a gazillion examples of people doing that (i.e. atheism causes totalitarian communism) and doing it stupidly, that doesn't mean you should cry foul when someone does it correctly.

Like--say--the Puritans put young girls on 'trial' for witchcraft and than burnt them to death convinced that they were doing God's work because they were batshit insane religious fanatics, motivated to so act by their religious doctrines.  

Or the laws of western nations have historically treated homosexuality as a crime and a sickness and persecuted LGBT communities accordingly because they followed religious doctrine on  sex and sexual morality and were motivated by deference to same. 

Or individuals who continue to treat homosexuality as a crime and a sickness and disrespect the LGBT community accordingly do so today primarily because they continue to follow religious doctrine on sex and sexual morality, and are motivated by same. 
 
And to acknowledge the truth of those last two statements is to understand why many in the LGBT community are understandably wary of religion. 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Shoblongoo

[Rezzy]

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

You realise that people have been bitching that kids these days haven't been raised right since at least Ancient Greece, right... ?

And they always will.

 

Yeah, I'm one of those weird LGBT people who is also religious, or at least tries to be.  These kinds of discussions often quickly become toxic, so I've generally tried to avoid them.

I'll address the second main point of LGBT kids.  I think there are extremes on both sides.  I don't think we should be pushing ideas into kids heads when they're still learning to write their name, but we shouldn't ignore the issue and act like LGBT people don't exist at all either.  I also think it's a bad idea to try to give puberty blockers to kids, since the brain is a very complex organ and medicinally treating a cis kid as though they're trans can do more harm than good and irreparably damage their bodies down the line.  It's not a simple problem.

[Dr. C]

38 minutes ago, Karimlan said:

I wouldn't go there, really. I'd say he played the atheist card like he did, through Molotov anyway, von Ribbentrop and the Nazis into a non-aggression pact that divided the Urals (along a pencil line, as Albert Speer in his Inside the Third Reich would put it) between the two of them. But, as the following link would tell you, he played the monastic card as well.

I’ll be brutally honest as I’ve said, Ive repeatedly said I am NOT interested in keeping score or tit for tat.

Im human and I bleed and I have been hurt more times than I care to count.

I guarantee you that I am a thousand steps ahead of you and it always ends the same way.

And say you’re right What then hmm?

You going to tell em that doxing  people threatening people in the name of my sexual orientation brings me anymore comfort than persecuting me in the name of my God? 

And I remember coming across a similar interesting website about Hitler a long time ago and I will say that the same principles very much apply abs they do here. Hitler and Stalin at the end of the day we erected powerists. Whatever kept them in power on any given day is what they believed.

And even though I am criticizing LGBTQ Activists and secularists  that does not mean I hold Christians  on some kind of pedestal here BELIEVE ME!

i will maintain my stance very staunchly that  it is a character issue at the end of the day.

That being said, when black plays bishop pawn advances two spaces, the Dragon Opening usually follows so with all Due respect please surprise me with the next one.

I am in a position where I am never going to be fully represented and I accept that. But you’re never going to convince me the devil I know, is better than the one I don’t in the case of LGBTQ representation. 

In the church Infelt excluded and discriminated against but with secular activists I feel used, betrayed and exploited. 

I don’t know which I like better but there is comfort in familiarity l.  

5 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

See this is where you actually have to delve into critical thinking. And distinguish between someone who is [A] did  vs. someone did because they are [A].

And that is a mental trap that people who just want to dunk all over the other side fall into.

-This person did [insert terrible thing here]. That person is  [insert belief here].
-That must mean that the belief causes the terrible thing.

Now just because you can point to a gazillion examples of people doing that (i.e. atheism causes totalitarian communism) and doing it stupidly, that doesn't mean you should cry foul when someone does it correctly.

Like--say--the Puritans put young girls on 'trial' for witchcraft and than burnt them to death convinced that they were doing God's work because they were batshit insane religious fanatics, motivated to so act by their religious doctrines.  

Or the laws of western nations have historically treated homosexuality as a crime and a sickness and persecuted LGBT communities accordingly because they followed religious doctrine on  sex and sexual morality and were motivated by deference to same. 

Or individuals who continue to treat homosexuality as a crime and a sickness and disrespect the LGBT community accordingly do so today primarily because they continue to follow religious doctrine on sex and sexual morality, and are motivated by same. 
 
And to acknowledge the truth of those last two statements is to understand why many in the LGBT community are understandably wary of religion. 

I understand the mistrust. Been there.

Does not make this current brand of activism infecting people like a disease is okay.

They spread straight up LIES about fields I studied in and the tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I know that there are children who know and I don’t deny that but that’s not the norm and it never has been. That may change  because of social attitudes TELLiNG kids to think about it more but that’s not how the child’s brain organically develops statistically speaking. 

1 hour ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

Bull fucking shit.

It is religious people who are arguing that kids will be messed up if they have 2 parents of the same gender and seek to deny same-gender couples children from a large pool of orphans that they themselves aren't even tapping to sufficiently, effectively impeding the orphans' and same sex couples' pursuit of happiness.

It is religious people who seek to allow employers to fire someone just because they're LGBTQ.

It is religious people that the orange turd in the white is pandering to in his military trans ban.

It is religious people that have long fostered the culture in which it was such a sin for a man to be homosexual, leading to the man considered to be the father of Computer Science, Alan Turing, being persecuted and denied full recognition for his work during his lifetime. Said persecution lead to his suicide, if not for that, he would've been able to contribute more to the field and we may have been further ahead than we are today.

It is religious people who like when people like you are "useful idiots" to them.

 

I'd like to see you prove that folly of a statement if you can. History is against you on this.

I’ve always maintained  that if you hold a position that Jesus doesn’t on the cross to cover the sins of all mankind then the issue is not whether or not homosexuality is a sin but rather how much you believe that. 

I don’t call faith based homophobia  that. I despise that term because it implicates faith where doubt sin involved. I would call that blaspheme. 

Here’s the thing though, whether you are right or wrong is irrelevant (And I feel you on Alan Turing) because if the answer to resenting being called a chink eyed Asian with a small penis and a “strange eccentric white guy” around Koreans was to hate my own respective communities, I’d be an angrier , darker and lonelier person. 

The reason why I feel the way I do about LBGTQ activists is as simple as the Bible itself.

i cannot love my neighbor and call him out online for being a homophobic bigot.

I consider an LGBTQ activist as much of an ally as a meth dealer is to a guy with depression spiritually speaking.

Now you might say aim painting them all with the same brush but note that I did not say allies are the worst allies. 

I simply consider people who sympathize by appealing to the darkness that arises from pain within people evil in the theological sense of the word. 

I am always weary of citing Satan because it brings about a lot of ridicule and creates a hellfire and brimstone straw man for people to poke at but two such names for Satan are the prince of darkness and the accuser.

So how do you think I feel about an LGBTQ culture where catering to dark emotions and accusing people are the pillars of their methods. The answer is I think that if you are not an agent of love personified you an agent of darkness personified. 

Your faith and creed are irrelevant on that front. 

As a human being, I feel pain facing discrimination, as a gay man I feel exploited and as a Christian I feel like I’m being fired at by two teams when I used to have have only have to deal with one.