I passed a Chick-Fil-A restaurant yesterday and outside on the lawn were some pro-gay discrimination people with a sound system and a mike, just to make sure as many people as possible could hear their hate speech.
Since I've now decided I will have to give up my waffle fries and egg and cheese biscuits (I'm a vegetarian so I don't eat chicken anyway), I do have a dog in this fight, so to speak. I have friends and co-workers who are gay and I feel their pain at being discriminated against. I am myself a somewhat "closeted" secularist, as I have had idiotic comments directed toward me regarding my lack of belief in a supernatural creature before, so I understand the ignorance and intolerance of some Christians toward people who don't believe as they do.
I may not understand on a personal level why someone would be attracted to a person of the same gender, but here's what I understand that Christians do not... I don't have to get it. Gay people are people, they're human beings, they're not "God's mistakes" -- because there is no "God" in the first place -- and they should have the same rights as everyone else, including the right not to be discriminated against because of the circumstances of their birth. To use one line from a book that was clearly written not by "God" but by men as an excuse to hate and discriminate against an entire segment of the population, even though this same book preached tolerance and "loving thy neighbor," is simply moronic.
If someone wants to believe there's a supernatural creature in the sky that's their prerogative, and I pretty much like to leave Christians alone with their illusions. But when they want to legislate their beliefs through our political process, or when they want to use the words in a book that has no basis in reality as a bald-faced excuse for hatred, then I get my back up.
Besides, I'm already paying more in taxes than I should because the religious write off their church contributions on their tax returns, and churches (which have been preaching politics from the pulpit in a clear violation of the separation of church and state guaranteed by the Constitution) get to keep the money they make tax-free as well. But that's a whole 'nother post.
If you're a Christian take your money and your intolerance to Chick-Fil-A if you will, but I won't be joining you.
