Let's be real here. The predominant reason for hatred of gay people is religion, all other reasons are disorganized and incoherent. He killed these people in the name of Islam, and we have to recognize that for what it is.
This is the face of a believer who chooses not to compartmentalize, and if you come around pronouncing how "it's not Islam, it's hate" then you're missing the point. It is the interconnection of religion and moral indignation that allowed the shooter to commit to this action.
Just, fuck. Welcome to Current Year, I guess.
I still disagree on this point. Pretty sure we've done this before.
It's hate. Religion just conveniently provides a backing of legitimacy to that hatred that allows people to act on it and still feel like they're doing the right thing, and I'd bet my eyeballs that the relevant bits of religious text were written in by people with massive hate-boners for exactly this purpose - that even if religion spurs homophobia that would not exist otherwise, the hate still came first.
There would still be homophobia without religion, and people would find some other way to legitimize that prejudice. I'm pretty sure there's been examples of non-religious mass persecution of homosexuality in the past.
And I've had many long debates with religious fundamentalists about their anti-gay stances, and the result has been the same every time. Tearing through the religious basis isn't difficult. You just repeat that their religious teachings don't have any authority beyond their religious group, so they need to come up with a different reason to present to those outside their religion for their persecution to be considered ok, and if they don't they are doomed to shrink into irrelevancy as they convince everyone they're nothing more than a hate group because they persecute people and can't give good reasons for doing so. Once you've gotten through this, you always encounter the exact same sentiment in the end. Every time. "It's just gross. I can't stand thinking about what they do. Their existence bothers me, and I can't take it."
If the belief of the religion is that something is evil and punishable by death, then of course they're gonna take steps to ensure that happens. The predominant values and written word of most religions are out there for observation, they're not just some amorphous faithfullness that's all up for debate. The whole practice of theology is in turning word into what you want it to mean. That doesn't mean that "Christianity and Islam are ok with being gay, it's just individuals with a problem", that's so fucking dishonest it makes my head spin.
And while you are right about this, and the hatred-based stuff in religious texts need to be challenged in theological debate, what people disagree with you on is your belief that religion itself is what provides the true motivation to act for people who do things like this.
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Topic: Murrican Politics Megathread 2016: There Will Be Hell Toupée (Read 1578934 times)