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There are extremist Muslims just as there are extremist Christians.
But I've yet to see Christians chopping a row of people's heads off on Youtube. There IS a difference.
The closest thing we have in the Christian world is probably the 1692 Salem witch trials (at least here in the US) or before that, the Spanish Inquisition. Those two cases were certainly administered by extremists. But we don't see anything like that today. Are there people who feel that way? I'm sure there are. But at this point I've not seen it on Youtube or read about it in the news. There is no "Christian State" hacking its way through the heads of the Middle East.
Do you honestly think ardent believers in Islam that come to our country will automatically abandon their beliefs and embrace our open and accepting culture? DO you think people are so weak willed that they will give a belief system imbued in them since birth and for many generations prior?
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Indeed, there are LGBT Muslims all over the world who*— just like all other LGBTs — struggle to meld their identities and religious convictions and navigate various personal*conflicts. As the executive director of the largest American Muslim group, CAIR, said yesterday: “For many years, members of the LGBT community have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim community against acts of hate crimes, Islamophobia, marginalization, and discrimination. Today, we stand with them, shoulder to shoulder.”*Muslims who work to make Islam more open to LGBTs deserve support, but those most eager to demonize Islam — for all sorts of tribalistic, nationalistic, and religious reasons — typically erase such people because their presence demonstrates how misleading the absolutist pictures of Muslims they want to paint are.
Do you honestly think ardent believers in Islam that come to our country will automatically abandon their beliefs and embrace our open and accepting culture?
Wait, what? Don't wear yourself out patting your own backs, there. There are plenty of US enclaves where Christian conservatives hold power, and they do everything in their power to push back LGBT rights.
The problem isn't "ardent believers in Islam", it's ardent believers of any religion feeling they're persecuted when other people live in ways they do not approve of. As for themselves, they can believe as ardently as they wish.
Using your religion as a cudgel it's not specific to Islam. How many threads did we have defending Kim Davis? There are US neighborhoods with signs implying women to make room for men on the sidewalk, "modesty committees" telling shopowners not to use female mannequins or informing fathers that their daughter is dressed in a skirt too short. And they're not Muslim, either. They're Hassidic Jews, not to be too coy. But they're a dwindling minority and considered by most other Jews to be a bit of an embarrassment.
Ardent religious beliefs when dropped in modern societies tend to dilute due to two forces: The power of making a buck when dealing with those your religion may say you shouldn't mingle with. And the power of sons and daughters doing interfaith intermingling in accordance with powers that way predate religion.
TLDR; Both Muslims and LGBT people have a right to be who they are.
Actually, if I had to choose between being an egg laying machine trapped inside the mound my entire life or a drone out collecting food, I'd go drone every time.
Even in communism, there are roles to be filled.
Once again, communism and people are not compatible.
There is nothing inherently wrong in anything. The wrong is in the abuse. Is it always easy to define abuse? No.
That much we can agree upon. So please let all your friends know that they are waving their fists in support of a system that is not compatible with them.
And they're not Muslim, either. They're Hassidic Jews, not to be too coy. But they're a dwindling minority and considered by most other Jews to be a bit of an embarrassment.
And that's why it's not a problem. Because it represents a DWINDLING minority.
In Europe, it is not "dwindling" and in about 100 years may not be a "minority" in many countries. Europe will learn the hard lesson of Lebanon during the 20th century as its demographics switched from majority-Christian to majority-Muslim. Therefore, it represents an equal or greater threat to western progressive democracies.
(BTW, Lebanon shows that this debate is NOT a racist one. In Lebanon it was the same people, same ethnic background.... different religious CULTURE that turned Beirut from the Paris of the Middle East in the 1950s and 1960s into the regressive hole it is today).
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Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
Ardent religious beliefs when dropped in modern societies tend to dilute due to two forces: The power of making a buck when dealing with those your religion may say you shouldn't mingle with. And the power of sons and daughters doing interfaith intermingling in accordance with powers that way predate religion.
There's not much empirical data for this. The Gulf States suggest otherwise.
It's also a problem when you have a faith that actively discourages intermingling (and inter-marriage).
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Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
TLDR; Both Muslims and LGBT people have a right to be who they are.
Being a Muslim is a choice. Believing religious bull**** is a choice.
Being LGBT is NOT a choice. We should therefore look out more for LGBT than Muslims. Muslims can stop being Muslim tomorrow if they picked up a book other than the Koran and learned to think critically about the history of their religion and their prophet.
But I've yet to see Christians chopping a row of people's heads off on Youtube. There IS a difference.
The closest thing we have in the Christian world is probably the 1692 Salem witch trials (at least here in the US) or before that, the Spanish Inquisition. Those two cases were certainly administered by extremists. But we don't see anything like that today. Are there people who feel that way? I'm sure there are. But at this point I've not seen it on Youtube or read about it in the news. There is no "Christian State" hacking its way through the heads of the Middle East.
I've asked this many times.......do you not consider dead, dead? Why is it worse to get your head cut off than to get blown to bits by a bomb dropped by a drone?
Assuming the video's you watch are even real, they are evil because their mode of death is not as technologically advanced as ours?
As far as black and white or grey in terms of conservatives and liberals, it depends upon the topic or policy. Both sides can be quite myopic on certain things.
In terms of Christians wanting to throw gays off of towers, that would be an incredibly tiny percentage.
For Muslims, that percentage is much much greater; hence the laws in Muslim countries. Oh, the the actual fact that you can YouTube gays being tossed of towers, stoned, lit on fire and beaten to death by Muslims with crowds cheering. Can you show me that happening with Christians?
You know my story Pedro. I've said this before here, but I'll say it again. I would rather have been tossed off a tower, stoned, lit on fire or been beaten to death, than suffer the pain of being disowned by m family, and basically thrown to the wolves by the church I had been a part of. While I am in a wonderful, and accepting church now, I miss my family so much I cry thinking of them. Because I know that without a miracle, I'll never see most of them again. I see my Mother every couple of years, but the rest of my family I'll never see.
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