Homosexuality.

[Oryx]

It's a fine line for people who are truly religious and truly good people at heart; part of their religion is to try to save other people from going to Hell. To you, it's them trying to destroy your life in this world. To them, it's them trying to save your eternal soul so you can still go to Heaven. However, the fine line rests between prophets and Jesus (although Jesus was a prophet but still he acted differently). The job of the prophets was to tell people how they weren't on the right track to get into Heaven, and how to act differently to achieve that. Jesus, although he was a prophet, didn't do that much and instead just accepted people as they were, sinner or not. To be fair though I know at least one of the prophets (Hosea) had to marry a hooker to make a point, so they were somewhat accepting of it themselves.

I wouldn't write off everything a religious person does that seems homophobic on the surface as a single-minded action to hold back gay people because they hate them or something like that. The viewpoint (at least in Christianity, can't speak for other religions) is actually really nuanced.

 

[Dakotah]

A recent bit of information came out just recently, about how NOM (National Organization for Marriage), a very vocal opponent of gay unions, sought to turn other minority groups against gays and lesbians. In NOM memos obtained by the HRC (Human Rights Campaign), outlined an effort by NOM to "drive a wedge between gays and blacks." The memos also show that NOM aimed to manipulate Hispanic communities by "making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity" and "to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of 'Anglo' culture."

The sad thing is, NOM doesn't deny it. In fact, they're proud of these efforts. If I belonged to one of these groups, either the Black or Hispanic communities, I'd be absolutely livid with NOM.

 

[Huggie]

Yes, but most people who are against homosexual marriage say that it DOES affect them because it is against their religion and that if they let the homosexuals get married they(the religious fanatics) are not doing their duty to their religion.

The fact that something is against your religion doesn't affect YOU as a person. It affects you only if you are the one who is going to do that particular thing your religion is against of. For example: let's say I'm a Christian ok? And my friend is gay and wants to ge t married. That should annoy me as a Christian because it's contrary to what I believe but that only means that I wouldn't do it! It doesn't affect me; I mnot the one who's getting married, my friend is. I have no right to stop my friend from getting married just because my religion teaches it is a sin. I can talk to him,yes, I can say that I don;t like it but I cannot hinder him.
The duty to their reliigion is to make thmeselves better, help the people around them as much as they can and follow some ehm..instructions (?) that their religion wants them to follow. Other than that ,however hard it may sound noone has the right to use his religion's beliefs in order to forbade someone to do somethink that affects ONLY his personal life and nothing else.

Let's take up Greed or Masturbation for example. Both are spelled out as sins in the Bible. Why don't you see many Christian/Jews protesting and advocating for legislation to ban such sinful acts, and therefore fulfilling their religious duties?

It's because many Christians, like most people, desire to have many possessions and luxuries. Similarly, most Christians, and people, have the desire for "sexual release". However, most Christians are heterosexual, and do not desire to either have a romantic or sexual relationship with someone of the same sex. Therefore, it's clearly just a bunch of hypocrisy; although proclaiming to act in the best interest of their faith, in reality they are subjectively excluding whichever sins that they choose to act upon. Also, there are many people who are non-religious who are in opposition of same sex marriage because of its "moral" stigma, or it's just "gross".

We humans have selfish tendencies. I, myself, have overlooked a lot of my own prejudices over the years. It seems so easy, but in action, it seems so hard for us to not judge other people...even for those of us who are self-proclaimed accepting and non-judgmental people. However, we do have the ability to embrace each others differences, and I think we will continue to become more accepting people in the coming years.

-ty- ---> that is sooo true! you have my respect there! :)