'Religious Freedom' and the LGBT Community

Yeah, I understand what you mean, especially when it comes to accents. You just can't expect people to know the alt functions for them.

And really, the main reason I point out mistakes in foreign terms is because I like to show off my knowledge of other languages. I don't tend to correct mistakes in the English, because people generally either don't care, or know that they made a mistake and don't need me making them feel bad about it.

Plus it's very difficult to know all the rules of English, especially since they don't teach grammar separately in the curriculum anymore. I remember having to explain to my English teacher the difference between less and fewer.

Although, to continue being picky, even without the umlaut, you should still capitalize Fuhrer. But now I'm just being an ass, so feel free to ignore this last paragraph.

If I'm just on a forum I tend to only worry about my grammar if it's something that'll change the way something is pronounced. I tend to ignore things like capitalization, but I try to use commas pretty well so that I don't make long unreadable sentences that hurt everyone's eyes because they sound funny if you try and pronounce them in your head without any pauses.

*wheezing*

I try to spell things right though, so that what I say means what I want it to mean. Same goes for apostrophes, though I guess that's actually grammar and not spelling.

I absolutely love being corrected, aside from things I'm obviously not concerned about, just because that's actually how I learn my grammar. I live in redneck haven west virginia, which I'm not capitalizing on purpose, because I seriously don't think I was ever even told what a semicolon was until highschool. Thankfully the internet enlightened me beforehand.

I'd like to point out to all of you, your going off subject, which is kind of a no-no in SD...

On topic:

Religious freedom is the right to practice your religion of choice, but just like many laws originally drafted, they had no perception of the changes that would come from the 21st century. Many people wish to argue significance of religious freedom's over personal freedom's, some with a honest belief that their spiritual well being lies in the balance, and others, for social and economical gain (most often the case of the latter manipulating the former). Example: Employers trying to get out of paying for birth control by stating it's against their religion that condemns monetary worship and preaches good will (Christianity).

As for LGBT, it's many people who (so very commonly) fear something they don't understand, so through the medium of religion, they furiously combat the changing mentality of the people around them.

In these cases, it's often a matter of picking and choosing the statements that caters to their opinion, reinforcing their mindset. Most people who claim religious belief often are subject of nitpicking the parts they want to follow, choosing the ones that reinforce their position of "justly behavior" and feigning ignorance to wrong doing and self improvement. blah blah, possibly unnecessary controversial rant...

Where was I...

While we may value religious freedom, an hour of listening to Fox's Bill'O Reilly would get you up to speed. Around, more-or-less, half of the (U.S.) nation does not view all religions equally, on the contrary, believe the U.S. is a "Christian nation", and therefore, should cater to Christianity. "Religious Freedom" is a tipped scale... (Like any of the others aren't...)

Many politicians and businesses use this to manipulate their desires. For individuals, this may be a moral issue, but for them, it could be anywhere around, unwillingness to give them finical equality, to, a distraction to rile people up over while truly vile and disgusting acts are being committed behind the scenes. Example: Insider trading in Washington that is illegal for literally everyone else. Their was a case of a state in the south orchestrating organ trafficking, how long did that last in the news? The moral outrage of the loudest people (Fox and politicians) is most likely an act to keep the masses occupied.

Religion, just like any system (government to serve people, armies to protect the unarmed, medicine to save lives), can be used as a weapon/tool, Christianity has been before, and it is again (I don't think it ever stopped being, though I haven't study the history of religion outside of my personal time). Christianity is being subjected to the role of a tool of control and influence over others who use it to represent themselves and their future.

Sorry really long, even though I wanted to reply to some people, I'll skip over it seeing the length of this already.

Oh, and sorry in advance if I offended people, I don't think anyone can talk about religion without offending since many people hold religion as a representation of themselves. But to those people who do, do remember that you are more than your religion. Anyways, sorry for possibly offending.

Not sure if it's needed but I'll add it...

As for my belief towards the LGBT community, with as unbiased of an opinion as I can fathom, believe they deserve equality, as well, that their struggle for it is significant. To further define myself, I see the news media outlets turning serious subjects into sensational fodder to rile the audience and increase ratings. As opposed to bringing up information for the audience to decide their own opinion, they often will tell you what to think and how everyone else thinks your wrong and how mad you should be at everyone else. Fox does this plenty, but MSNBC is guilty of this plenty too (seeing as their supposed to be the one closer to the middle ground).

I'm assuming most of the opinions OP are getting are from American news media outlets, so sorry if I'm assuming too much in my last paragraph.

Ah, yeah, sorry about that. Got caught up in our own little tangent conversation there. I'll try to make up for by making some (hopefully) meaningful statements here.



This is something which is fairly common to most religions, but seems particularly easy to do with Christianity because there are a hell of a lot of contradicting statements in their holy book. The only thing which comes to mind from the bible which is not contradictory is the dislike of money lenders, (can't remember the name of the story about it), but you don't see many people speaking out against banks.



Very true. One in particular I feel strongly about is Guantanamo Bay, which Obama promised to close down when he became president (or possibly when he was re-elected, not sure on that), but has done nothing about it, at least as far as I've heard.



The BBC has historically been quite good at this, but has been slipping in recent years. For instance, the recent conflict in Ukraine was reported, but not explained. I had no idea who were fighting and why.

I'd also like to say that, for myself at least, the reason Christianity is used as an example most of the time is because it's the one that's most familiar to me (and most people in America and Britain). I would use more of a variety, but clearly teaching us about religions other than Christianity in Religious Studies would be to difficult.