Yes, atheists such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were such great humanitarians. That’s a wonderful argument. The Spanish Inquisition and Salem witch trials only claimed about 2000-3000 lives if I remember correctly — a tragedy to be sure, but nowhere near the scale of the Shoah, the Gulag, or the “killing fields”.
Slavery in the US and the slave trade in the UK were ended largely by troublemakers with religious convictions. Most hospitals in the US were started as charitable operations by religious organizations. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater; and read the lessons of history well, lest you find yourself condemned to repeat them.
I have gay neighbors and friends, and had a gay roommate in college. So I think it’s fair to categorize myself as a non-homophobe.
There is a difference between “tolerance” and “recognizing as (socially/morally) equivalent”. Most Christians I know are perfectly comfortable with the former, but sense that what is being sought by by the gay community is the latter.
IMO the societal function of marriage is to provide a stable environment for children, i.e. to provide a structure around procreative activity, which by definition is impossible for a homosexual couple (absent a sperm/egg donor and/or surrogate mother who is not a member of the couple). If we want to redefine marriage for the 21st century, let’s have a conversation about that, but let’s be perfectly frank about what we’re doing.
And I would point out that the hardships suffered by homosexual couples (being barred from hospital rooms) are not exclusive to them — non-married heterosexual couples frequently have the same issues. For that matter, I could not get in to see a dear friend of mine who was dying of cancer because I wasn’t “family” — he was a windower with no children — so he spent his last few hours alone.
