“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Something like that?
I haven’t sorted out heaven and hell and judgment and grace. It’s not my place to, thankfully. But I don’t think there is a non-zero chance of hell for anything the Bible condemns, whether Old Testament or New, and since I have broken almost every commandment (no murder yet, so I guess I’m good?) I really can’t say. That has to be between each individual and God. If I believe that grace can cover the bad (horrible sometimes) things I’ve done, I have to believe that it can cover anything anyone does if they are trying to follow God.
Someone asked Jesus “What’s the most important commandment?” He said “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And love your neighbor as you love yourself. Everything else hangs on these two commands.” I try to stick to that philosophy and not get into individual judgment.
And now I feel like I’m preaching, which I hate, so I’ll stop. If I can leave this last thought: not all Christians think and behave like this lady. Or all Republicans. Or all white people. Or all… whatever other group she fits into. She only represents herself.
We actually quote the above in a chant in the weekly Advaita Vedanta services I attend here in Baltimore. He said this because he realized that All is One, which he learned from the Eastern traditions (and because it’s true, and truth is accessible to all).
I think this Jesus quote from Thomas sums it up rather nicely:
22. Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father’s) kingdom.”
They said to him, “Then shall we enter the (Father’s) kingdom as babies?”
Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].”
If only this were true, and she was not representative of the majority of people who identify as Christian in the United States.
I like Liz, or Pete, or Joe or Amy or Bernie or Cory or Tom or even Mike!
or a flaming sack of dog excrement would be an improvement over the current ‘occupant’
Would gladly vote and stump for any of our candidates
including FLAMING SACK OF DOG SH!T 2020 I mean, could it really get any worse?
I will use whatever nickname for Mayo Pete that I care to. You don’t have to agree with my opinion regarding the source of his campaign financing, and I don’t require any rando’s corrections.
I don’t know If we’re just discussing what the word “tolerate” means. Threatened minority groups seeking tolerance often want an end to actual violence against them, bullshit arrests, threats of death or other violence, and so on. I feel very safe assuming we are all on board with that kind of tolerance, that none of us think it’s a good idea to criminally harm this person. I also don’t think anyone is suggesting taking away this person’s right to vote.
To me, when someone brings up accepting/tolerating/whatever someone who expresses homophobic views, I assume they are doing so in response to something that is actually being done or advocated - that they are making the point because something in the discussion brought the issue to mind. Because of that, I tend to read “tolerate” or “accept” or any other suggestion that a place needs to be found for people like this in the Democratic party as an expression of the idea that we ought to moderate our disagreement with the person to avoid making them uncomfortable and thus alienating them as Democratic voters.
That’s what I disagree with. If you don’t think that then I wasn’t disagreeing with you (even if I thought I was).
It’s Mayor Buttigieg - or Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg to me - we’re not on a first name basis. At the very least Mayor Peter - let’s not be disrespectful.
I honestly don’t know WHAT tolerance looks like per se. I am not suggesting pandering to her homophobic view, and indeed from post one suggested she be confronted and eventually have it changed.
I mean many of us in life have to deal with people whose views don’t completely align with ours. That might be work or school or even family. I tolerate some of these people because I have to, more or less. With family they are still family even if I don’t agree with them politically. There may even be confrontations at times.
Ultimately the Democrats need the votes of “unpure voters”, so aggressive actions by supporters to excise them might not be the best move. The lady in the video did an amazing job of confronting, but doing so where it wasn’t exclusionary (She must have taken some sort of class on conflict resolution. I was so super impressed.). They should continue to have the positive policies they have when it comes to things like gay rights. If that is a deal breaker for a voter, so be it. But if there are other things in the platform that they like better, they will still vote Democrat and just “agree to disagree” with one aspect of the platform. If this lady had voted for Sanders or Warren we wouldn’t even know her dark secret and she would be considered “one of us”.
I see this issue as macro and micro. The Macro of how the party sets policy shouldn’t change or pander. The Micro of specific interactions, in life or online with people who identify as Democrat should be handled diplomatically to present an alternative view, reason out why one feels a certain way, and reaffirm the areas one does agree with. YMMV. I say all of this because the Democrats NEED a win this year for all our sake.
In fact I bet many of us disagree with some of the Democrat platform. Does that make one not a true Democrat or a true progressive? Do they not want their votes?
aw man - I was getting excited that, even if we won’t get anything done for 4 more years (or 8…or 16…or…etc), we will have a 1st gay president (and a gay first husband). now my dreams are squashed a bit. I didn’t think these Iowans would vote for a black candidate, and I guess I was wrong, and I assumed I’d be wrong here too, they wouldn’t vote for a gay candidate…but I guess we don’t really know yet because no one knows.
No one is taking aggressive actions to excise “unpure voters.” Bigots are still free to vote Democratic, they just usually choose not to.
When the KKK abandoned the Democratic party to support first the Dixiecrats and later the Republicans, it wasn’t because Democrats said “we don’t want your votes anymore.” It was because the Democratic party had started adopting more progressive stances on civil rights and the KKK couldn’t handle it. Keeping those votes wasn’t worth compromising on basic human rights. Same deal here.
Right? Once again, SHE made the choice NOT to vote for him because he was gay… that’s what happened. Is he supposed to pretend he’s NOT gay to get her vote? FFS, his husband might give that away!
Well - I don’t know if that’s true, entirely. Not in the video, no, but on the internet I don’t think such a reaction would be that diplomatic. And there have been echos of “fuck them, we don’t need them” in this post.
Again, if you don’t think bigots and racists exist in the Democrat party, I have some bad news for you.
I am trying to be pragmatic here.
Again, not suggesting they compromise on party platform in anyway. Clearly this women still IDs as a Democrat for some other reason besides gay rights. Maybe she just hates Trump. What ever. We still need her vote.
Funny how the only “sacrifices” to be made are to those voters. No one is taking away her rights - not that lgbt folks actually have all the rights she does legally.
Well, they’re the “mainstream” right, so the rest of us need to conform to their standards in order to get by… otherwise, they may vote for a bigot who rolls back protections for us… /s Oh, WAIT, they already did that… They already fucked us over rather than live in a country with equality for all.
Everyone is mainstream - hell - farmers and ranchers make up just 1.3% of the labor force. That doesn’t mean they should have less rights than the rest of us main-streamers. And we’re not talking about a disagreement over say trade or monetary policy - we’re saying that not accepting people as full human beings with value and as equal to them isn’t just a minor disagreement over a line in the 53 page party platform document.
That’s my point, but they don’t see it that way. All they see is themselves as the “real” Americans and anyone who disagrees with them, looks different, worships different, loves different, speaks a different language, etc, etc as “other”, out to get them, and less deserving of equal rights.
Right. They see giving others the same rights they enjoy and take for granted (such as running for president while gay) in this case, as somehow diminishing their rights.
Why this is a hard concept for some to wrap their head around, I’ll never know.
I’m sure the operative phrase is, in fact, ‘well-groomed’.
The best learning moment in my dreams would be for people who know to know but Pete to keep his partner entirely under wraps until elected President and then reveal him. 75% of the country would go apeshit.
More seriously, I do wonder how many handfuls of votes he loses from people like this woman every time he brings his partner on stage for hugs and kisses after one of his speeches. Polices are all fine and dandy but optics can lose an election quicker.
