"There are three major descriptors that contemporary Christians use to characterize their religion. The first is fundamentalist, which characterizes the unchanging, eternal nature of God's truth as handed down by various religious institutions and interpretations of scripture. Second is "born again", describing how Christians achieve a Pentacost like awakening, where they are literally filled with the Holy Spirit and incapable of denying the truth as enshrined by whatever sect they are members in. The third is Evangelical, in which the Christian is highly motivated to share his spiritual beliefs with those around him/her, to the point that they are powerless to abstain from it. Fair enough. So be it. One of the basic tenets of our democratic society is freedom of religion.
How any of these conditions translate into the belief that Christians must imprint and impose their beliefs on society as a whole and then demand compliance, on pain of civil punishment and constraint, is truly bewildering.
Christians are free to live and believe anything they want. They can say anything they want. I personally think it's a bad idea but they are allowed to forcibly indoctrinate their children into whatever ideosyncratic beliefs their group holds, even though this has often proved to include sodomy, rape and other forms of coercive sexual and psychological abuse.
Why isn't this good enough for Christians? Why do they require that I practice misogyny and homophobia? Why do they get to dictate the terms and conditions of my marriage and family life? Why do they get to decide whether or not I can raise children, based on how much my life style and culture is similar to theirs? Why do they require that I accept their institution's special exemptions from taxation and observance of civil law. Why am I required to give blanket respect to their holy men, when they obviously are unsavory felonious thieves, often chain smoking, fishbelly pale, morbidly obese and coercive sexual predators upon the young and weak.
Christians young and old, can be as evangelical, fundamentalist and born again as they want, as long as it's not a template that I am required to fit into. I think that's fair. I don't mind Christians. I like them for neighbors, friends and co workers. I don't care how many kids they have or how they raise them. If they want to give up the little boys for the priests to sodomize, so be it. I don't care about their sexual or gender role arrangements. I don't care who, how or how long the marry for. I won't have sex with them unless they agree to the use of pre lubricated latex condoms impregnated with anti virals and spermacides, there are limits to how far even one as determined towards peaceful coexistence as I will bend but I think that's fair."
, that's basically the most painful read of my life.