Just wanted to say thanks to many folks in this group

[theHandpuppet]

I have to admit, when I've seen posts here referencing the "other forum" I didn't really know to what you were referring. So a couple of days ago I did a bit of searching through the various religion groups and found what the rest of you were talking about. In the process, I found a very long thread in which many of the posters here in A&A defended LGBT rights, cogently and vigorously rebuffing attempts to reframe the arguments for human equality.

Thank you very much for your support and for your voices. I was very moved by your vigorous defense of human rights and just wanted you to know how much I appreciated it. There are times when a soul can get worn down fighting these battles but reading the posts from so many of you was a real boost.

[Mr.Bill]

1. I think many Atheists

have something in common with the some of those in the LGBT community. We both live or have lived in closets for awhile. While I have been fairly open about my Atheism for many years, I can come here and say thing that would cause heated arguments with some family and friends.

I'm glad I've found this section of DU. It is my favorite.

[skepticscott]

2. According to one poster there

we are only defending LGBT rights because we can use that as a club against religious folk here. And that poster is a self-identified lesbian.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=126479

If you listen to them, we deserve no credit at all. But thanks!

[Rob H.]

3. But she's never called anyone a bigot! Oh, no!

[Warpy]

5. Well, "that" poster finally hit the ignore pit

I've had it. She's officially wearing blinders and spits venom rather than reading a whole post.

I'll dip a toe in that forum from time to time. I might think religion is hooey but I have no problem with reasonable people who prefer to work within it than without it.

Maybe I'll go more now that the most objectionable poster has sailed into the sunset. Probably not. Too many of the godly think the forum is about theology and eschatology and should have nothing to do with the bullying religious people are doing, trying to insert their dogma into civil law.

[uriel1972]

14. I have tried to raise...

Theology and eschatology problems in that group. I don't think that the regulars want to dive into those, as focus on specific doctrines such as salvation tends to derail the peace and harmony, interfaith flavour.

The whole interfaith thing is a bit of a laugh, as most of the faiths believe that all the other faiths are going to hell. However, they like to maintain the illusion.

[Warpy]

18. That's why they all groove on the myth and dispense with the teaching.

It seems the silly myth is about all they can really agree on, a god/man who committed suicide by cop so they could get into heaven, something that makes no sense at all when you start to ask that first question and that's why they get all bent out of shape about us.

I actually long for the days when they'd all look down their long blue noses at each other. Divided, they weren't as big a threat to the country.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. A nominee for Religion group host, no less

We dodged a bullet on that one.

[onager]

4. Very gracious of you, thanks!

And this works both ways - I'm sure our posters who slog it out over there daily appreciate your kind words. I marvel at those posters myself - to be able to stay cool and stick to the facts, when confronted by such massive evasion, logical gymnastics and sheer pig-headedness is a really remarkable thing to see. Only wish I had their cool and mad debate skills.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. I have to admit

that I am not one of the posters you are referring to, since I will not go into that group. If I want flogged, I will walk into a church and yell at the top of my lungs that everyone in there is a fool.

But I want to express my admiration to the same posters you are referring to. Someone has to stand up for atheists as well as any other group who is persecuted by the religious. I just can't stomach it.

[deucemagnet]

7. I want to second the sentiments of onager and Curmudgeoness.

A recent post in this forum directed me to a thread in the other forum, which I normally do not frequent. The A&A posters in that thread demonstrated an admirable degree of logic and patience in the face of logical fallacy, evasion, obfuscation, and passive-aggressive petulance. Well done, indeed.

[Heddi]

8. Hear Hear! There is a great group of folks in this forum

who just really put themselves through the ringer day in and day out to fight the bigotry and hate that just oozes from that other forum. Just in the last month one prolific poster has repeatedly stated that if you support gay marriage, then you have to support someone marrying a vole, a hamster, a dead grandmother, their sister, and a bicycle. They made this comparison several times and was finally locked out of the thread when one of his posts was hidden by a jury. The fact that he wasn't banned for such balatantly bigoted statements is absolutely mind-boggling to me. As other posters (including myself) pointed out in that thread, had a newbie poster with less than 100 posts made those exact. same. comments, they would have been kicked out on their bigoted, homophobic ass, as they should be. But for some reason it's okay when someone with a star and a few thousand posts can say that 2 adults in a loving, committed, same-sex relationship who want to benefit from the status of legal marriage is *exactly* the fucking same as a man who wants to marry a bicycle.

This same poster also believes that women who are negatively affected by Religious-backed birth control policies either through individual employers or ACA mandate can "just buy rubbers at 7/11 like most of us do." Not even joking. He really meant it, and said it several times. As if "rubbers" and "hormonal birth control for non contraceptive purposes" are remotely the same thing. Again, not okay if a newbie poster says it. Okay if a Religion Regular says it.

I wish that several people in that crowd would just be honest and say "no, I don't support same-sex marriage because My bible/church is against it, " and "no, I don't think that there should be a mandate for contraceptives because my bible/church is against it' rather than falling over themselves to prove JUST HOW MUCH THEY ARE SO MUCH FOR EQUAL RIGHT unless you want to marry your same sex partner, or have your insurance cover your birth control (like it covers insulin and viagra and blood pressure medicine)

Even the people who get a quarter every time they start a sentence with "I'm not a Christian, but..." or "I call myself an Atheist, but...." or "I'm an Apatheist, which means I don't know if there's a god and I really don't care, but...." could just be honest and say that Gay Rights aren't that important to them. Or that separation of church and state isn't important to them. Or that civil rights just aren't that important.

Many of these same players were *firmly* in the Gay Marriage Is An Issue THat Will Sink Us In The Primaries/Presidential Election/Primaries/Presidential Election back in 2008, 2010, 2012, and now 2014. I know this because I read their arguments many times. They insinuated and outright stated that gays were "Selfish" to make it all about them, that this is an election for 'everybody', etc. So it is hardly surprising to me that they do whatever they can to apologize and explain away any concerns that LGBT'ers and their allies have.

[onager]

9. The "buy rubbers" thing got me wondering...

Was that a humblebrag about the private lives of Cap'n & First Mate Clueless, the always jolly and happy crew of the good ship "Oblivious?"

For some reason, I'm reminded of a quote by Samuel Butler, though obviously I don't think a god had anything to with it:

It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another, and so make only two people miserable and not four.

[Heddi]

10. rofl

that's an awesome quote.

I've often told people that I'll never get divorced, as I think it would be cruel to subject two more people to the misery my loving husband and I have subjected each other to (just kidding. we're awesome)

[Rob H.]

15. He also said in that hidden post that

sexuality is "about sex" and it isn't. (FWIW, I've heard right-wingers make the same claim.) I could have sex with a man but would that change me from straight to gay? Of course not. Sexuality is at least as much about who you're attracted to and who you fall in love with as it is about any physical expression of that attraction--a person could even argue that it's more about that, since most people are aware of their orientation long before they have sex for the first time.

IIRC, he also said marriage is "a ceremonial binding of two entities." Again, no. A wedding is a "a ceremonial binding of two entities," a marriage carries with it a lot of legal rights and privileges, rights and privileges that unmarried LGBT couples don't have. There have been committed partners kept away from one another when one goes in the hospital because the person in the hospital's family objected to having their family member's partner there. And if one partner dies, the family of the deceased can challenge the will out of spite and might actually succeed since the couple wasn't legally married at the time of death.

I think you're right, too, that if a newbie had said any of the things he said, the newbie in question would probably have been bounced before he even knew what was happening.

Edit: Damned punctuation. Grr!

[Lordquinton]

17. Talking sexuality with the religious can be harrowing

Because they are still getting the vapors over homosexuality when you try to explain bisexuality. Then you get to the always cut off part of the LGBTQIA with Asexuality and how two people who have no interest in sex (but may be attracted to their own gender, so someone can be homosexual and asexual) and inform the religionist that two men can want to get married with no interest in sex what so ever.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Greetings and thank you.

And, I would like to say, I am terribly sorry you encountered the opposition side of that argument, here, on DU of all places.

Of all the places on the internet that should be blissfully free of advocates for the denial of basic human rights, or at least free of apologists for organized religious efforts to deny such rights... DU ought to have been it.

So, I am sorry you had to read all that, but I am glad you took something positive away from it.

[TxDemChem]

12. I never go to that other forum, but we atheists tend to be pro equality

Once you take out religion, I really can't think of any excuse to treat people differently. Actually, life is a lot simpler when you don't let a book if fiction determine how you live your life.

Glad you have found support here

[uriel1972]

13. I would say that we atheists HERE are...

Elsewhere YMMV

[TxDemChem]

19. I could see that.

I was mostly thinking about my dad's deconversion when I was replying to the thread. He used to be really anti-LGBTQ, but is now an avid supporter. Like a whole new person. Thankfully, I've only run into pro-equality atheists.

[Gore1FL]

21. Our souls never get worn down!

It's the advantage of being an atheist!

[Act_of_Reparation]

22. In dealing with that "other forum", it is easy to fall into a cynical funk...

...but it is times like this that I realize the frustration is totally worth it. Thanks for the kind words.

[mr blur]

23. In of of the alerts that led to my recent "holiday" from DU,

I was accused of being 'homophobic' because I told one of the regular xians that I was surprised that they "hadn't had their wrist slapped" for stepping out of line. This, it seemed, showed that I was anti-gay because everyone knows that in the whole of history only gay people have ever slapped their children's wrists for misbehaving.

My gay son would have been amused by that one.

[Rob H.]

24. And people voted to hide that?!

Sounds a lot like the time a religious regular over there made the claim that the expression "wetting themselves" is a sexist expression and continued to make that claim after it was explained to him numerous times that "wetting themselves", "wetting your pants", etc., are pretty common expressions and that sex/gender has nothing to do with it.

Where to do these people come from who would think something like, "Wow, those banksters stole billions of dollars of our money and just walked away with a slap on the wrist" is homophobic? It's a common expression that's used a lot to denote a ridiculously light punishment for doing something really wrong. Maybe the alerter, like the poster I mentioned above, is willing to claim they've never heard it used that way, but come on. That's just flat-out dishonest and whoever alerted was really reaching, imo. (Or, in the instance mentioned above, willfully obtuse.)

Edit: wow, 4 edits. That may be a new personal record for me.