Recently I was scrolling through Facebook and avoiding responsibility when I stumbled across this status:
Now, I'm not here to shame people who post statuses about religion. I don't have any issues with people being proud of what they believe in. I do have issues with copy and paste "Facebook Challenges," but that's a story for another day. I just want to dissect this status and look at how it applies to religious arguments against homosexuality. As an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, I feel it necessary to expand upon these arguments. I'm not going to answer all of the lines in this status because some of them don't apply, but there are definitely some clear issues within this status.
Essentially, the message here is "be tolerant of my views because they don't hurt anyone." So can we all agree that that's the message the LGBTQ+ community is trying to convey? Yes? Awesome. Let's proceed with picking apart this status now.
So the first sentence I want to look at is "You don't believe in God? That's okay, but why is it so important for many of you to mock those that do?" First, if this is a claim that Christianity is being attacked, you can walk away from me right now. Christianity is not under attack, especially in the United States. I can't think of an instance where I have seen Christianity mocked, threatened or attacked online or in the real world. But let's look at how people are treating those in the LGBTQ+ community. First, and the most obvious, would be the recent shooting at Pulse in Orlando. If you're going to claim that Christianity is under attack, but then refuse to offer aid to those who actually were attacked, then shame on you. Back to the issue of mocking: I don't think we even need to discuss the picketing and protesting of things like the Pride Parades, and the constant harassment online. Then again, since it's still going on, apparently we do need to discuss it. Moving on!
"What have you lost in my believing? My life choices shouldn't dictate yours." Let's edit this to say "what have you lost in someone being gay? Their life choices* shouldn't dictate yours." (* it's not a choice, but I couldn't come up with a better word) Umm. Isn't this basically what the LGBTQ+ community has been saying since, like, forever ago? This is literally the argument they've been preaching. Honestly, if you say "believing in God shouldn't matter because it doesn't hurt anyone," your religious arguments against homosexuality are worthless. "How does my faith in Christ bring you any harm?" Again, how does a person being gay bring you any harm? Historically, Christianity brings more harm to the LGBTQ+ community than vice versa.
OK, so I'm veering off my path here to just pick apart some more issues I have with this status. Bear with me as I go off on a brief tangent:
"[If you don't believe] your consequence is far worse than mine." Wow. I don't even want to tackle this one, but it'll bother me if I don't. OK. I grew up in the church, and the number one message they hammered home since I was like 4 years old was "Go tell everybody to love God!" ... this is not the way to go. Are you attempting to scare people into believing in God? "I would rather strive to be a better person and find out I was right about God, than not do that and find out I was wrong." So what I'm hearing is "I'm only doing this because it does something good for me. If it wasn't true, I wouldn't waste my time." Also, aren't you basically admitting that you aren't positive that heaven is real and you're just covering your tracks just in case? To reiterate, I'm not intending to bash Christianity as a whole, I'm trying to pick apart this status.
Anyway, getting back to my original argument about applying this status to religious arguments of homosexuality:
"How does it affect you? It doesn't."
That part they got right.
