Summations Only

Nah - tyranny is when some government guys crash into your house in the middle of the night, take your husband and son kicking and screaming from your home, lock them up without explanation, pull out their finger nails with pliers, bash their genitals to a pulp with baseball bats, push hot needles into their eyes, and when they finally get bored, drown them in a small bowl of water, struggling out their agonising final seconds. That's tyranny.You're confusing tyranny with the compromises that everyone makes in an enlightened society, to try to ensure that people don't suffer more as a result of the exercise of a right, than the right justifies.

So should Christians in a restaurant refuse to serve fat people, because that would validate gluttony ?

In that case, why have you not been protesting, vigorously and vehemently, against the actual laws in place which do actually require employers not to discriminate on the grounds of gender ? Why on earth is it that fundamentalist outrage is reserved for sexuality ?If you are not consistent about your outrage - so that you are equally enraged about secular attempts to impose laws preventing discrimination on the grounds of gender as you are about similar attempts in relation to sexuality - then (a) your argument loses all validity; and (b) I'm afraid your attitude appears founded (in part at least) in personal bigotry.As others have said before, you do seem on a personal level to be a perfectly decent person, and I suspect that you may not have any personal bigotry against gay people, and are simply following what your interpretation of the bible requires you to say and do. But if that's the case, please ask yourself why these few sections of the bible result in so, so, so much more vituperative, outraged and vociferous condemnation from religious fundamentalists than any other biblical requirement.

The vituperation was a reference to some of the interviews I've seen conducted with preachers and members of the religious right, rather than you Faith.But on your substantive point, you say that this point changes a law that affects what we're allowed to think and do. Well, first off, there is clearly no law which prevents people thinking what they want to think - that's hyperbole and again, undermines your position. Let's stick to what is being talked about, which is whether we should prevent people discriminating against other folks on the basis of their sexuality - a law preventing people doing things, not thinking them.Secondly, we have had (in my country and yours) for quite a number of years now, legislation which prevents discrimination on the grounds of gender. It was hard fought, but the legislation exists - it's actually there, making it illegal for Christians to refuse to appoint women to positions of authority in their businesses, on the grounds of their gender. If you want to argue against laws which would prevent discrimination on the grounds of sexuality, then you have to argue for the repeal of laws which prevent discrimination on the grounds of gender, or else your position is inconsistent and not credible.And it's not just gender - going back to one of my earlier points, you should also be protesting outside MacDonalds, for super sizing their meals and contributing to gluttony.But that doesn't happen - we don't see any of that from religious fundamentalism - we just see the protests centering around people's sexuality.Now you could argue that this is simply a topical issue, but that puts the cart before the horse. What makes the fight for equality of sexuality a topical issue is the current resistance to it, and that resistance largely comes from fundamentalist religion. And their lack of resistance to other biblically-frowned-upon equality, and secular morality, suggests that their resistance to equality of sexuality, stems more from bigotry than defending a faith which is not actually under attack.

There are a few points here. You've chosen the right word there - yes, a law permitting homosexual marriage would require acknowledgment of that marriage by everyone in society. In exactly the same way as requiring people to acknowledge the equality of men and women. You don't need to believe in it; you don't need to support it; you can believe it's wrong; you can tell your children, family and friends that you believe it's wrong; you can think it's wrong. But society requires us to acknowledge things which we might think are wrong. It doesn't ask us to agree - just to accept that some people in society are different from us, and have the same rights as us. Requiring acknowledgment of something is not the same as requiring agreement with it. That is a crucial distinction. It would only violate your conscience if it required you to abandon your belief or your views. It does not. It only prevents you from acting in such a way so as to discriminate. You can believe whatever you wish. Really ? You think it would be good to prevent sin ? And here you are complaining that a law preventing discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is appalling, because it dictates the way we should think. How much worse is it to desire a world in which everyone could be so controlled that they could actually be prevented from sinning. No thoughts of envy - of greed - no coveting of the neighbour - no lust - no wrath - no pride. Try to imagine the pale, emasculated, dystopian Stepford beings we would become.

And here we have it - conflating homosexuality with crime and paedophilia.Was that deliberate, or just spectacularly ignorant ?