Not a smart move to put animals in there, since right wingers love to equate homosexuality with bestiality.

This is the paradox of modern politics.

These people are fucking morons of the highest order. They're poorly educated idiots spouting complete nonsense that has zero basis in reality.

In a sane world, we'd ignore them as lunatic outliers. They're not new; they've been here forever, they just change the nonsense.

The problem is that we now live in a world where the most powerful man in the world actively encourages these people, if not explicitly, then at least implicitly with his own brand of deranged paranoia.

The fundamental issue is that internet is great at connecting people, and it doesn't discriminate between connecting Bronies, small-town homosexuals, fans of William Shatner's music, political dissidents in oppressed countries or people who indulge in insane conspiracy theories.

There's no putting that technological genie back in the bottle (and even if we could, the cost would be too great IMO).

So what to do about that?

If we ignore them, they thrive underground and if we give them "airtime" their ranks are bolstered.

I really don't have an answer for this.

If you become what you despise in your efforts to fight against it, you've already lost.
That said....

I feel like they might be better served by saying serving Republicans violates their religious standards and they can't be forced to participate in their event (dinner). Any further explanation also violates their religious beliefs.

It would be great to watch their heads explode when their big hateful legal win against homosexuality is turned against them.

Holy crap, the religious people were right...allow homosexuals to get married, next you'll have people marrying dogs and giraffes, and then you get this.

You blew it when you stood me up on our date, don't come beg/crying back now...no love for you.

I began with the congressional bill you claimed didn't exist by stating...
"Congress had nothing to do with authorizing this."
...and followed with multiple articles that delineated exactly what the republican led congress did.

Can you dispute a single fact presented, or do you simply dismiss the fact checking entirely because it's not from a source politically right of faux news?
Left "leaning" compared to your normal hyper right opinion articles is hardly disqualifying without contradiction, and I don't accept the label anyway. Calling out Republicans for lying 3-1 over Democrats is actually right leaning when you consider they lie >5-1. (For example: Tax breaks don't benefit the rich, I didn't pay off my mistresses and those payoffs I made 2 weeks before the election to hide years old events had nothing to do with the election, my campaign had no contact with Russia, a republican pedophile is better than an upstanding Democrat, homosexuality is an abomination unless we get caught at the gloryhole, .....I could go on forever VS 'I didn't see an issue using a personal server for government emails', and "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".)

Right thing for who? Not for regional stability.

Twins aren't genetically identical, even at birth. They begin separating from each other genetically when the zygote splits. Environmental factors determine how genes are expressed, and those factors are not identical. That makes twin studies a piss poor method of gene study. All it can tell you is how much the environment might effect their expression over time, and they aren't very good at even that.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/twins/

Now that genetic testing is cheap, we're finding out most identical twins aren't identical at all. Proper gene testing doesn't assume twins are identical clones for life, it actually disproved that hypothesis. The space study with twins showed that in under a year their genes permanently diverged a full 7% (with a larger temporary change initially that lowered as they returned to similar environments).
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-twins-study-confirms-preliminary-findings


I feel that people often misuse mistaken assumptions to validate their prejudices. If the science isn't clear and validated, using it against others is improper in the extreme.

Discriminating against people for their legal, culturally accepted, natural behavior makes the person doing the discriminating an asshole. Homosexuality is quite present in nature, is now culturally accepted in western cultures, and is legal. Tolerance is a learned behavior I wish was taught better, especially by churches.

As promised, the most promising results when polling google scholar:

"Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample"

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/J_Bailey2/publication/12572213_Genetics_and_Environmental_Influences_on_Sexual_Orientation_and_Its_Correlates_in_
an_Australian_Twin_Sample/links/0deec518bc0435c0cd000000.pdf

Probably one of the better studies, it breaks down orientation to a scale versus straight binary, though the results are then statistical correlations and my stats classes are too long ago for me to work that back into something resembling my claims above.

"Sexual Orientation in a U.S. National Sample
of Twin and Nontwin Sibling Pairs"
http://ioa126.medsch.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/47.pdf

19 identical twins in the study with at least one twin with non-hetro orientation, within those 19 pairs, 6 showed concordance. So 6 of 19 identical twins sharing orientation, 13 of 19 not. This supports my statement above that in studies identical twins more often than not don't share homosexual orientation. This study also lists the statistical correlation of this result as 0.68, the previous studies statistical correlation was lower at 0.51(1.0 would be perfect correlation). If I'm reading the statistics remotely right, the above study then is similarly in keeping with my statement.

"Homosexual Orientation in Twins: A Report on 61 Pairs and Three Triplet Sets"
http://hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/1961to1999/1993-homosexual-orientation-in-twins.html

Smaller sample size and different polling methodology, specifically sought out respondents of non hetro orientation. Shows a higher correlation, 25 of 38 identical twins being concordant. That's 66% concordance so opposite of my claim that more often than not they are discordant.


Running out of time here to post results. If you keep digging though it's more of the same, identical twins don't come close to showing 100% correlation, highest study of the samples I've pulled is 66%, and it's by far the highest. This is in contrast to race and gender, where you fully expect 100/100 identical twins to match.

Do you recall the day you chose to be heterosexual? ;-)

While far from settled, there are indications sexual orientation may be genetically influenced at least, if not genetically determined.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/speculative-genetic-link-to-homosexuality-found

There's more conclusive evidence of a genetic component to transsexuality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexuality

Alright, let me rephrase the question.

Would a group/church that takes the stance of homosexuality isn't 'Kosher' and treated it as such be considered sufficiently tolerant to you?

I know the real example had other issues, but should a baker with that belief be allowed to refuse to make a cake with a non 'Kosher' message on it?

Well, I don't agree with this premise.

As @newtboy points out, there are plenty of other things the bible lists as sinful that no one really gives a damn about.

IMO, the evangelical right's abhorrence of homosexuality isn't really about religion. There are two factors at play:

1 - "gays are icky". Some guys (and it is mostly guys) are seriously disturbed by the idea of male homosexual acts. Lesbians? Eh, they're obviously evil, but also kinda hot, so we'll let that one slide.

2- fear of being gay and/or being labelled gay. "Me? I'm not gay! I hate gays!"

Ultimately, I think that for the majority of evangelical christians, homosexuality will be more and more accepted, especially as the older members die off.

My 2 cents....
It might be, but that's not their position.

Religiously, as I read it, it's not much different from wearing a cotton poly blend or working on Sunday, also immoral according to the bible, but realistically the bible is just used as an excuse for them to attack things they don't like.
No American has been murdered or even ostracized by evangelicals for wearing blended fabrics or mowing on Sunday even though it's incontrovertible that the bible says they should be, but many have been murdered for being gay, and millions ostracized. Proof enough to me that it's not about what the bible says, that's just an excuse to attack what they hate or fear.

Compared to greed, the love of money, homosexuality seems barely mentioned, yet there's no outrage about the elevation of greed in our culture, it's celebrated.
Same for idolatry, forbidden by direct commandment from God not some interpreter, so if you've ever worshipped at a church with statues of any kind, including the cross or stained glass, God hates you far more than gays and demands we stone you to death.

Jews don't try to legally outlaw pork for everyone, not even other Jews. Christians have made homosexuality illegal for everyone, repeatedly.

Quick poll of the mostly left leaning sift.

The evangelical christian belief that homosexuality is immoral isn't going to disappear, it's being listed in both old and new testaments as sinful makes that a lock. However, that's no different than the Judaic list of foods that are sinful to eat, which orthodox Jews still observe.

So the question is, if the evangelical christian position is simply that homosexuality isn't "Kosher", no different than the Jewish belief that eating pork isn't "Kosher", is that an agreeable live and let live position?

"None of our side died, points for us"...begging for retaliation, no? Also, give it time, the murderer may have killed himself too, domestic terrorism is a capital offence.

"None of our people killed anyone unjustly."
The car was struck by a bat after he murderously drove through the crowd killing people.

He's just begging for someone to drive into his next rally so he can open fire with all 5 guns at once and finally feel like a man, isn't he?

His followers are scurrying for the shadows now that they're being identified publicly. It will be hilarious if all their homes get robbed while they're in San Francisco harassing homosexuals on 9/11.

Drain the swamp... I don't see any swam draining. He drained the very same Wall Street people he complained Hillary would bring in, into the White House, and other low lifes... like Bannon.

And if we get just another 10 months of turmoil depends on how we pray... of course a minor chunk of Christianity don't vote Republican, and actually vote the way Jesus would, which clearly wouldn't be for Trump or his kind... but I digress. So they are praying against Trump, but of course we know she means we need to pray for the nation, and for Trump's divine leadership from God... odd how the right is willing to say that God appoints leaders like Trump, but wouldn't say the same about Obama, who clearly was far more Christ like than Trump... Anyhow, the point I was going to get to, is odd how one has to pray to get God to act, though His will is perfect, so you can't change His mind, or His will... and why would He just sit and go... "4,998,888 more prayers to go, then I'll answer.. ohh... 4,999,884 to go! Way to go My people." That isn't compassion or anything... Either His will is perfect and His will will be done, or He's malleable, which isn't divine... or He's a fake, or at least no more real than any of the other 5,000 gods out there, and can't actually answer prayer any more than those other gods... "It takes an action of faith on our part, by praying"... bull shit, either He's going to do it or not.... because most of those kids with brain and bone cancer, Christian, with Christian families who pray all the time, as are most of the people who are dying of horrible things in this nation, but somehow His answering prayer ratio seems to be about the same as random, and the same as to any other god...

All these kind of people, and Fox News types who also brag about their faith, and how Christianity is under attack bull shit line... is why I hate Christianity and what it's become... to which Christians take great offence, "why hate me?" but I hate Christianity, not you as a person... of course they don't get that, because they identify so strongly with their faith that they take that personally as an attack against them... of course then they don't see how their anti-LGBT rantings, and the "don't hate the sinner, hate the sin" is basically the same... they can't empathize, and see how their hatred of the sin of homosexuality as they see it, is the same as my hatred of modern Christianity.

I love how the far right is far more upset at the leaks than the crime... when the DNC was having leaks, they had near zero concern about the leaks, it was the potential crimes being exposed that they were concerned with. Now that it is against Trump, suddenly the potential crime matters nothing, all that matters is leaks. Were this Clinton or Sanders, they'd be screaming from the mountain top, "the crime matters far more than the leaks! Lock her/him up!" Now they are going after leakers, who haven't exposed anything that endangers national security, just is embarrassing for our asshole in chief.

Of course the people who watch this, 700 Club, TBN, Fox, listen to right wing radio, and the like... they are still fired up, they still believe. Some of the people who voted for him who may not be in that crowd, might start having doubts, but the vast majority of his base still is in love with him, and still thinks he's God's greatest gift to this nation. They've been lied to and deceived by their churches for so long... that even if they actually do take a moment to read the Bible for themselves, they can't interpret it any other way than the way these ilk violate it's teachings, and the teachings of the Jesus they claim to follow.

As I've said before, if I were still a Christian, I'd seriously consider the modern right wing evangelical movement to be part of the anti-Christ system, as they turn more people against God than for Him, and are teaching a system opposite of what Jesus taught... Satan/the anti-Christ doesn't need to deceive the world, we are already damned to Hell, what he'd need to deceive, would be those who think they are faithful to the teachings of Jesus. Use them, not as a beacon of life and hope, but the pure bigotry and hate that modern Christianity is. To make it it unappealing... they might still get into Heaven with those who actually believe the way Jesus taught (because believing Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and all that is the only requirement in), but the Judgement Seat of Christ would find them learning how they cost millions of souls, then He'd point to the Christians on the left, and would say, they did far better, they followed my lessons... He'll look at Jim there and say, "look at the thousands of souls that you personally turned against My message, because you didn't teach the Love I commanded, you didn't teach the golden rule as I taught it, you taught a corrupted message, and now they'll burn for all eternity in Hell, because of you. I tried to reach them, but they heard your message of bigotry and hate, of love of money over helping the needy and the poor, of greed over the command to heal the sick, and turned from me.... now because you believed in Me, I have to let you in, but you'll live seeing those who turned from me as they are tormented in the back of your mind... you'll have a small home here, not the grand home that those who have taught my message properly have... to those who much was given, much was expected, and you failed. That man there, murdered 33 people, and converted before his execution, and his home will be grander than yours. Those who had much, will have little... so enter to your reward... of praising me for all I've done, 24/7 for all eternity, but as you praise, remember those who aren't here, because you poisoned the world against me." "Surely Lord there must be some who were saved, I saw them come forward." "They were already saved, or would soon be, for each one of them that actually turned to me because of you, hundreds turned away... that's not a good exchange Jim..."