http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article67845317.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/03/24/north_carolina_s_anti_lgbtq_law_is_unconstitutional.html

Religion (Mormons in the West, evangelicals and Baptists in the South) seems to be the nexus of all the social turmoil that has taken place in America over the last sixty years. Fights over civil rights, interracial marriage, abortion, ERA, sexual orientation, marriage equality, and now gender identity all have a religious component.

Mormonism has played both sides of the fence claiming to be both racist and non-racist at the same time. Evangelical Christians claim "God loves everyone" but seem to restrict that to cisgendered heterosexual whites only. Opponents of marriage equality were hard pressed to find any legitimate secular, non-religious basis for their position. This keeps happening again and again as each new issue gains prominence.

Why is this? Is religion the origin of hate or just the means of channelling it?

Update:

There is no evidence of trans predator bathroom assault. It's a myth.

http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/10/15/texas-experts-debunk-the-transgender-bathroom-p/206178



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2016 09:39PM by anybody.

In the decades and decades ago for anyone who ever watched the marvelously entertaining Flip Wilson, his most famous catch phrase was, "The Devil made me do it." Always got a laugh.


For the Mormon church and others of their ilk, their catch phrase is, "God made me do it" to absolve themselves of all sorts of bigoted, hateful actions. This time there is no reason to laugh.

This is one more reason why the gay community should seriously consider a divorce from the transgender community.

The LBGT activists in this case insisted on allowing someone to choose whichever bathroom they personally associated with their gender. Opponents rightly realized this opens the door for any man to enter a women's bathroom or changing room based solely upon a personal claim of gender identity.

Do you want your 15 year old daughter changing clothes in a locker room at the YMCA that may have men present based solely upon a personal claim of an opposite gender identity?

These questions have nothing to do with gay rights. They are an entirely separate issue, and should be treated as such.

Many religious conservatives do not discriminate between gay and trans folk and view them all as sexual deviants. From the article:

"The impetus of the special session was a provision in Charlotte’s expanded nondiscrimination ordinance that would allow transgender individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender with which they identify. Critics said it was “social engineering” to allow people born as biological males into women’s restrooms. They said legislation was needed to correct Charlotte’s “overreach” and to protect the safety of women and children.

The bill prohibits any such bathroom flexibility.

But it also will keep Charlotte and any other municipality from adding new protections for gays, lesbians or transgender individuals.

In North Carolina today, there are no legal protections for gays and lesbians. That means a private business in Charlotte or anywhere else in the state can refuse to serve someone who is gay, and a bakery could refuse to make a cake for a wedding of a gay couple.

In Charlotte, that would have changed as of April 1, when the expanded ordinance was scheduled to go into effect.

The only protected classes recognized by the state will be race, color, national origin and biological sex."

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article67845317.html#storylink=cpy



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2016 01:50PM by anybody.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Trans women are raped and abused at a far higher rate than cis women. That risk increases if they are in a men's room.

It would look more like this:
http://globalnews.ca/news/1869568/victoria-transgender-woman-takes-segregated-bathroom-fight-online/

Would you want this man in the bathroom with your 15 year old daughter?

http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2015/03/17/trans-man-behind-wejustneedtopee-isnt-selfie-centered



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2016 02:02PM by woodsmoke.

the bathroom business is pure BS. This same argument was made when ERA was up for a vote, that there would be co-ed bathrooms and women would be raped. Nope (ERA didn't pass, but come on! ridiculous argument anyway). The only harassment I have ever seen in women's rooms was against masculine looking women being told by other women that they were in the wrong room. I will stand up for the T in lgbt. I'm not T, but I don't have to be.

Exactly. If someone is really a rapist, they are going to hide in a women's bathroom anyway (which many creepers do anyway). They aren't going to pretend to identify as a woman (really?) unless they want to risk getting raped themselves.

Also, men do rape other men, women rape men and other women...if you're so concerned about your teen daughter changing in front of a guy, should women be screened for lesbianism too before they are allowed in a locker room with your daughter? Should there be separate gay and straight bathrooms? What if a gay guy is *checking you out* while you change in the men's locker room? Should gay guys be prevented from changing publicly? Are you going to have a security check in public bathrooms to check genitalia? It all makes no sense. It's hysteria, plain and simple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2016 02:11PM by woodsmoke.

I think it's just a means of channeling it. Social conservatism is at odds with social evolution. Religions are control mechanisms. Since social conservatives are easier to control, that's the agenda that gets pushed. Ideology is so shoved down peoples throats that it smothers the natural love that's in them. They can kiss this natural man's a$$.


It's interesting that Joseph Smith was one of the most socially radical men of his time. He did it all. Today, the church he started is one of the most socially conservative in the world. Because it's more a business than a church and social conservatism sells. That and sex. In that world, sexual repression sells. Just another wonderful benefit of your tithing dollars at work.

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Is religion the origin of hate or
> just the means of channelling it?

Neither.

Consider the issues you cite: "civil rights, interracial marriage, abortion, ERA, sexual orientation, marriage equality, and now gender identity." You assert that each one of these possess a "religious component". Maybe. But more to the point, each one also possess a larger cultural component.

Every one of these issues goes well beyond religion and were once cultural norms, i.e. 'black' people having less rights than 'white' people, homosexuality being proscribed and marriage being between one male and one female were all once cultural norms outside religious belief. No one needed to be religious in the '80s, for example, to be homophobic. Nor did anyone in the 60s need to be religious to believe 'black' people were inferior and should be segregated from the 'white' population. We saw this not only in the U.S. but today in Israel. An Israeli need not be religious to believe that Palestinians are inferior etc.

Your either/or question is too narrow and perhaps self-serving. What we can say is that the American religions today that you cite are "vectors" of the fear of change. They are largely depositories of what our culture held in the past. 'Throwbacks', if you will.

It isn't accurate nor useful to think of "hate" as a religious thing. It is a universal thing among us, far beyond religion etc. Just as religion can hold hateful things politics can hold hateful things, as can art/culture, etc. It is human to hate.

Human

when you peel back the layers of scientific or philosophical racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia you always find a religious argument behind it.

"Almighty God created the races -- white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix."

--Judge Leon M. Bazile, Loving v. Virginia, 1959



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2016 06:06PM by anybody.

yet more wide stance republicans.