Nobody’s asking for “praise”, the LGBT movement is about attaining the same civil rights that you enjoy.
> you can almost certainly find an entire organization dedicated to whatever X you please.
This is fairly meaningless when you strip it of all magnitude and comparison. Sure you can find some weirdos in numbers that are statistically insignificant. You can’t even make your point without also acknowledging that an organization of ten people is 0.000000125% of the population, which is, statistically speaking, for all intents and purposes, nobody.
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You may want to reread what I wrote because the last thing I was trying to do was argue a "strawman that summarized LGBT as being harassment vs praise". In fact, I was arguing exactly the same thing you seem to be arguing here: that this is a false dichotomy being preached by the loud minority, and that taking a balanced middle ground is a fine idea.
However, I do find it funny that you're offended about someone being pedantic with your argument when it seems like that's the exact same thing you did with my original comment.
> And of course, my religious views don't mean I can go and harass people who disagree with me or anything. But it also doesn't mean I have to go praising them for doing something I don't agree with.
This still sounds like a straw man to me. Again, apologies if I’m misreading you, but you didn’t respond directly to my comment to you that LGBT people aren’t asking for praise by and large, they’re asking for civil rights. Your comment that you don’t need to praise them seems like a straw man because they’re not generally asking for or expecting praise, as a group.
Perhaps to be fair to you, in a way, I don’t personally see how people telling people stories that LGBT people are wrong can avoid leading to harassment. I don’t think it’s possible to take part in that narrative and not produce behavior that comes off to LGBT people as systemic oppression. So yes, if you intended a message of peace and inclusion, I have indeed missed it upon re-read.
Most religious bodies, despite their uneducated followers not understanding the nuance either and generally being homophobic turds, are against extramarital sexual intercourse not because god hates the gays but actually because they believe [religious] marriage is covenant of procreation. Marriage is not needed to have sex, and having sex outside of a situation where you’re willing and able to accept children, is not the society these people want to build. There’s nothing inherently homophobic about that at all. Nobody (the bible included) says you can’t love someone of the same sex or even have two people of the same sex cohabitate and raise children. It’s actually quite the opposite if you look at history and the broader context. They’re just not “married” in the eyes of their church because they’re not popping out babies. Believe it or not, in the Catholic Church, a heterosexual couple married but on birth control is looked down upon and considered to be in a state of sin.
Now you can still have a problem with a group of people considering extramarital sex sinful, I have no apropos argument there, but it’s not born of some grand scheme to discriminate against the gays or whatever. And it’s really uncharitable and harmful to thoughtful religious people to reduce their moral doctrine to charged falsehoods.
Also, different christian denominations have different beliefs about the purpose of marriage. Sex outside of marriage is definitely sinful in all of the mainstream christian churches, though they differ on how sinful sex is in the context of a marriage.
I'd also note that, while wedding ceremonies commonly talk of kids, there is no obligation to have kids as part of a marriage. For example, the church is perfectly happy to marry an old woman with a man, even though it is absolutely certain she can't have kids anymore.
Overall, the orthodox/fundamentalist christian position seems to be: sex should only be done for the purpose of making children, only married couples should have sex, and anyone capable of having children should strive to have more children. LGBTQ+ people are not exempted - at least if they are physically capable of having children, they shouldn't let their personal preferences get in the way of their duty to God - so they should also seek to enter a heterosexual marriage to have children. The only exception to all of this is choosing to become a monk or priest (depending on denomination) - in which case you owe a duty of faith to God and thus shouldn't love other men or women anyway.
It doesn’t really map to either “fundamentalist” or “orthodox” in the usual theological senses (though its more associated with the former), particularly the “anyone capable of having children should strive to have more children” part, which is a modern social movement overlapping with some streams of Christianity, but not really a part of traditional doctrine.
> The only exception to all of this is choosing to become a monk or priest (depending on denomination) - in which case you owe a duty of faith to God and thus shouldn’t love other men or women anyway.
The branches of Christianity that have celibate religious brothers and/or clerical celibacy are also the most accepting of the concept of a vocation of committed single Christian life outside of clerical life and religious orders; there is basically no Christian community I am aware of where monastic/priestly celibacy is a norm but it is the only acceptable non-married life.
OP makes it seem like if you disagree with LGBT lifestyle, then it's because you must hate the people. All I'm pointing out is that you can disagree with the lifestyle and the movement while still loving the people. That's a core tenet of Christianity: God hates the sin while loving the sinner.
Once again, the OP's ultimate point was:
> if anything, it is comendable to at the very least be able to change your position if enough (real) evidence is provided.
And the claim was that LGBT people are actually quite pleasant, hence you should change your mind. And my counterclaim is that according to Christianity, people can be pleasant while sinning (after all everyone is a sinner[0]), and sin can still be wrong. They are not mutually exclusive. So realizing that someone is pleasant while also not following the tenets of my religion is not counter-evidence that would make me change my mind.
[0]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%203%3A23...
I would even argue that for non-religious people, the concept is entirely irrelevant, with some exceptions, and religious people shouldn't try to legislate anti-sin policies into law.
[Exceptions:] If you live in a heavily Jewish neighbourhood and sell sandwiches, it is a good idea to have kosher ones as well, even though you personally don't care about mixing of cheese and ham.
Two things can be true at once. People who identify as LGBT can be very pleasant people. Additionally, I can still believe that identifying as LGBT is wrong according to my religious views. In fact, according to my religious views, everybody is a sinner and doing stuff that's wrong, but that doesn't mean they're horrible people. But it also doesn't justify the wrong behavior.
And of course, my religious views don't mean I can go and harass people who disagree with me or anything. But it also doesn't mean I have to go praising them for doing something I don't agree with.