User:Woozle/2008-10-21 response to Homeschooling Hints

Foreword

This is a response to the posting and subsequent comments on "Perilous Times: Sodomites in School". I haven't actually posted it to the blog; part of me thinks it's a waste of time to try and communicate with these people (and possibly dangerous, and probably a zillion other Pharyngulites have already written to them -- possibly with more eloquence), but another part says that it's wrong not to say something. Opinions?

2008-10-22 Ended up rewriting this from scratch and posting it as an open letter.

Note: thisisby.us went under and is no longer available, but I snarfed a copy of the essay and will repost here when time permits

Text

I suppose this comment will be "moderated" into oblivion since I'm disagreeing with the basic premise here, but I know at least the blog owner will be reading it and I felt it necessary not to remain silent and thereby tacitly consent to your point of view.

I just wanted to say that homosexuals and transsexuals are not automatically bad people; most of them are decent and honorable, and care about their friends and families just as heterosexual "normal" people do, and have no wish to hurt anyone.

The Bible apparently condemns them automatically just for being the way they are, but:

(1) The Bible condemns a lot of things, and most people (even purists) ignore most of those condemnations -- shall I put together a list for you?

(2) The Bible was written a long time ago when people were far more ignorant than we are today, and feared anything different.

(3) It was also written in a time when infant mortality was very high and rapid breeding was necessary to sustain the species; the opposite is true now.

What the Bible says in this case is just plain wrong. It is immoral and evil to follow it blindly.

By choosing that particular part of the Bible to follow, you threaten myself, my family, and my loved ones. People who make that same choice routinely torture, molest, and even kill people who might be my friends. What sort of God would condone killing someone for being different? Where did Jesus say to call people garbage if you disagree with them? Where did Jesus say it would be poetic justice if a gay person was killed by a vigilante?

On the other hand, I do not know of any instances of gay or trans people hurting heterosexuals such as yourself.

Regardless, we cannot allow this ideology to stand unopposed. We will not allow ourselves to be controlled by religious dogma, and we will not allow this country to become a theocracy. It is our country too.

We have long tolerated your beliefs and your dogma, as absurd as they seem to many of us, and the flip-side of that tolerance is that you must also "live and let live". The more you spread your ignorant and hateful ideas, and the more violent and threatening they become, the more they are a menace to society, and the more we wonder why we tolerate them.

Change your beliefs, or we will change them for you.