I don’t believe in free will, so I suppose we have reached a stalemate. In my mind, one’s religion or favorite color is no more of a choice than sexual orientation. But I understand that most people would disagree with that perspective, and trying to convince you that free will doesn’t exist is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Well, I can’t say I agree with you, but I do appreciate your viewpoint and that you took the time to explain where you are coming from.

I wish you would try to be more welcoming to people who aren’t already in your camp, but at the end of the day I can’t blame you for trying to protect yourself and other people in the LGBTQ community.

Debating on whether or not minorities deserve the right to exist is not the same thing as arguing about which brand of magic sky-daddy you subscribe to.

Why do you people keep talking about “the right to exist”? That’s nonsensical. You either exist, or you don’t. No one can take your existence away from you, it’s not a right that can be granted by others.

What you are really talking about is the right to make assertions about the nature of human sexuality without being challenged to provide evidence for those assertions.

It’s quite clear that you have a persecution complex. I can understand why, I’m sure you’ve had some unpleasant experiences with certain people that have caused you to adopt this defensive posture.

However, your comment is absolutely reeking of in-group and out-group bias. Everyone who is part of your group is being unfairly persecuted, and everyone who is not part of your group is a genocidal Nazi.

Personally, I am fully in favor of any and all expressions of sexuality, as long as the resultant behaviors and belief systems can be debated and analyzed like any other human behavior or position.

To the neutral observer, it’s apparent that certain online communities cough are echo chambers that refuse to engage in honest discussion regarding LGBTQ topics and vigorously attempt to expel and shame those who do not adhere to the party line. This may be beneficial to your self esteem in the short run, but it ultimately does a disservice to your goals, assuming that you intend to enhance the acceptance of LGBTQ culture in our society moving forward.

I would argue the same is true of LGBTQ individuals. I don’t see how one could rationally argue that an infant emerges from the womb with a fully formed sense of sexuality. Sexual identity is a nebulous trait that develops throughout our lives, not an objective, immutable physical fact such as the color of one’s skin or the chromosomes composing one’s genetic code.

Many LGBTQ people transition through a number of different sexual identities throughout their lives. An innate property is something that cannot be changed.

I suppose that it’s possible that we all get assigned a hidden number at birth that defines our sexuality absolutely, and people just struggle to figure out what their “number” is due to societal pressure, but that doesn’t really jive with our understanding of human biology, like at all. Nearly every trait we have studied exhibits both genetic factors and environmental factors.

Who are you referring to?

declaring a group of people don’t deserve to live

I’m sure if anyone said that, they would rightly get banned. My question is why any disagreement or criticism is interpreted as a declaration of war?

LGBTQ people disagree vehemently amongst themselves about nearly every aspect of the LGBTQ experience. It’s not a topic that is well understood by anyone, not even people who are a part of it.

Religion and Work are every bit as important as sexual identity, if not more so for many people. Christianity isn’t Star Trek (at least not in the minds of Christians), yet we would consider a Christian who responded to honest criticism of their religion with hostility to be a narrow-minded fool at best, a dangerous zealot at worst.

Good context, I didn’t realize they don’t have downvotes. That changes things a bit, the downvote is a fairly necessary mechanic for facilitating any type of serious discussion online.

But I’m still curious if anyone can rationally explain why saying “I don’t like gay people” is worthy of a ban? Personally I would never say that, because it’s an idiotic statement. But why is that unacceptable for someone to say?

There’s a very simple response… “Why not?”. And depending how they respond to that, they could definitely end up in banworthy territory. Or perhaps they might respond with an obvious misconception that could present an opportunity to educate someone on their ignorance.

I am curious why the allowance of anti-LGBT viewpoints is so controversial. As stated above, all of the basic rules of civility are still being enforced.

Let’s say he decided to clarify that anti-Christian, or anti-capitalist viewpoints are not allowed. There are millions of people around the world who would claim such censorship is bigoted and narrow-minded. And they would be correct.

As long as people are polite to one another, what exactly is the problem with allowing people to express their perspectives?