Many of them think being gay is a choice because they are bisexual. So for them it’s a choice on whether or not to act on it. So they project that it’s a choice for everyone.

Considering all the other things they consider temptations, if it’s half as fun as everything else they hate, I might have to try this being gay thing!

I’ve got a couple of gay friends, and after I’ve spent time with them, my homo be raging.

It’s sort of true. If you have been raised to suppress your wants of people of the same sex, being confronted with things that you find arousing and forbidden makes that suppression hard. That is, you are now aware that you are gay.

Only their balls though. It’s only gay if the balls touch.

Dont try to drag me into your sinister, ink stained agendas!

SToP ShOvInG YoUr lEFt HaNdEd iDeOlOgY DoWn mY ThRoAt

I love the fact that people joke about this nowadays. Because my mom still has bad memories from her childhood, where her teachers forced her to be right handed, acting as if it was a choice, and she was just really bad at writing. This was not a third world country either, but the Netherlands.

I have and it’s amazing!

Weird I’ve heard about this from so many countries, from Japan to almost every communist country.

Did me until 2nd grade. That teacher gave me left handed scissors with a laugh.

Similarly, lots of parents of Deaf children were told not to teach them sign language.

That doesn’t work, unfortunately. What tends to work is epistemology, where you try to get at how they know what they “know”, and the roots of their belief. It also helps if you really develop a rapport with someone, are genuinely empathetic, and aren’t asking obviously leading questions; you want to help someone begin to question their own beliefs, rather than telling them to justify their beliefs to you, if that makes sense.

Really deconverting someone can take a long time.

Check out Anthony Magnabosco some time; he’s got a YouTube channel dedicated to street epistemology.

So… the Catholic Church, well known for traveling the world to shove Jesus down everyone’s throats, is an American institution now? Got it.

Heh, and before the 15th century it was the American Christians that went on Crusades, yeah?

For real though

It’s all the fun banning puritans who got booted out of the country after their coup and subsequent dictatorship finally got overthrown who were the bulk of the Thirteen Colonies, which largely just left the “love thy neighbour” Christians who actually campaign against racism, homophobia, climate change and whatever else can be seen as people insulting “God’s creation” which frankly I can completely get behind even if I don’t believe it as such.

Frankly I don’t get the mind bending logic to ignoring all the “everyone is God’s child, he has made them as he sees fit, he loves them, you should love them too” stuff in the bible and skipping past to a small subsection which says that men shouldn’t sleep together, especially when they ignore the fact that the same section says that anyone who works on a Sunday should be put to death along with a bunch of other wild and wacky stuff that we just all collectively agree was a product of the time it was written…

Well us and Africa… and Russia

Yeah, there’s a lot of history to this, but it’s a part of why there’s so many unusual or distinctive off-shoots of Christianity that come from the US: Jehovah’s Witnesses, LDS, Seventh Day Adventists, Evangelicalism, etc…

It’s not just the Puritans, in fact, it’s mostly not, though they’ve given us plenty of other cultural baggage.

Because we weren’t our own nation, we didn’t have our own bishop in the church of English, so for ministers to get ordained they had to go to England to be trained and then come back.

This gave rise to a conflict between the New Lights and Old Lights. The New Lights were basically proto-evangelicals and they determined that the proof of qualification to be a minister wasn’t a degree, education, or some church approval from overseas, but the ability to gather a church.

This meant that charisma became the defining trait for a successful minister. They’re not educated and they’re terribly persuasive. This is why evangelicals have such terrible theology. There’s all these ideas that are mainstream evangelical ideas that never existed before this period.

The rapture was created during this period. That’s right, for nearly 1800 years Christians wouldn’t even know what you meant if you said “the rapture” and now evangelicals wander around telling everyone to be prepared.

Gaysus fucking Bi-st that’s a good one!

I suspect that our home grown American and Christian homophobia is not Christian-based at all. People don’t like the thing that is different or icky, and instead of being introspective about why that is or if it’s the right thing to do, they see that the Bible or their preacher agree. Then it’s time to turn off the thought process and just go with it.

It’s just a happy little evil coincidence. Typical biblical cherry picking being spoon fed to the base. Funny how little discussion they have about how the Bible has instructions for abortions and how to treat your slaves.

I’d have to agree with you, and appreciate the thought regarding not over generalizing Christians, but I understand why people tend to.

Example: Remember cake lady from Indiana? She was a bigot. It pissed me off when she tried to use the excuse of ‘religious beliefs’. Since she specifically claimed Christianity, I call total BS on the grounds that Jesus NEVER treated anyone like shit (aside from the other religious people, which following that thought, means she would have gotten called out). Jesus always gave people grace, and then offered advise (specific to Christianity). I would so much rather people be honest and say they don’t like ____, instead of some BS hiding behind their own distorted version of faith. I don’t have to agree with their opinion, just don’t lie about it.

Also, I’ve never had any person who’s gay try to ‘convert’ me, ever. You could get a bunch of comedy bits out of that one though. I have had mormons and jo’s witnesses come by. They were nice, but if I wanted to waste a bunch of time talking, I would definitely ask them to explain views on dancing, sexuality, etc.

The only pro gay conversion I’ve ever been exposed to was movies/TV shows advocating for it being a ‘normal’ thing. I suppose that’s because in the US, it’s still considered ‘weird’ or wrong, and writers are trying to back it for what I imagine are civil rights reasons.

I’m not sure why it’s so hard to stop caring about stuff that doesn’t matter (to me). I have never cared about a person’s orientation.

As someone who was raised in the church I think this completely misses their perspective.

They believe that God is completely fair and just, and wouldn’t make someone in a way that was contrary to how he wants people to be. So it’s impossible for being LGBT to be something innate and unchangeable, since that would require God created people specifically in a way that he says is wrong.

So instead they go with “it’s a choice, they were ‘converted’ and it’s possible for them to mess up everyone else too.” It’s just to stave off cognitive dissonance, essentially. You can’t believe in a God that says being gay is sinful and then creates people to be gay, so you have to believe it’s like alcoholism or something and can affect anyone.

There’s no logic behind it and clearly no scientific data, but that won’t stop them because they arrived at the conclusion based purely on it being the only thing they can believe and not change the way they understand the nature of their God claim.