Illinois Family Institute Named Anti-Gay Hate Group by Southern Poverty Law Center

So long as she acts within the realms of the law she can say whatever she wants, no matter how incorrect or hateful. That being said intentions are no excuse and personality, as Ian points out, is irrelevant.
The hate label on her and others like her also makes people like this out of excuses. Once someone points out that what she is doing is hate then she is either spreading it deliberately, incredibly stupid or mentally ill. In any of those cases putting her in a position of influence makes her dangerous.

I also have to say that “excusing” people like Laurie Higgins by saying that they are just horribly misguided doesn’t add up. No matter how they came to their view, it’s still hateful. They have the means to educate themselves, but apparently choose not to, thus it’s a choice and they have choosen hate.
It’s also incredibly dangerous because people like her have a following and some of those followers go out and do physical harm to people (not “just” emotional and monetary harm by legislation).

My definition of hate is when you believe negative things about a group without evidence which no objective person would believe. I’m sure that many people in Al Qaeda who would be caring loving people if they weren’t brainwashed by that extreme fundamentalist organization (I know I’ll get flak for saying that, but I truly believe it is the ideology, not the people, that is evil). They truly believe that Americans have turned their backs on God and embraced Satan, thus dooming themselves to being killed for their sins. In the minds of Al Qaeda, they are the good guys, standing up for God against the evil Satanist Americans. Similarly, IFI, though thankfully less violent, has the mentality that gays are mocking God by their lifestyles and that that makes them as bad as child molesters. Both Al Qaeda’s view and IFI’s view are full of holes and make no sense when you consider ideas of basic human decency. Thus you can say that the people support hate even if you can’t say that the people are inherently hateful.

I think gay rights supporters need to do a better job at shooting down the comparisons between gay marriage and things like incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and polygamy. Incest should be banned because it increases the chance of genetic deformities in the child. Pedophilia and bestiality should be banned because they are non-consensual since children and animals don’t really have the mental capacity to fully consent. The problem with polygamy isn’t the practice itself, but rather the extreme fundamentalism that almost always goes with it ( allowing the prophet to control everything in your life, loss of women’s rights, ect). We need to focus on fighting the extreme fundamentalism in this case. It should be noted that gay marriage has NONE of these problems. Thus the comparisons are invalid.

When my “spies” went to the AFTAH anti-gay training seminar a few months ago, they made note that Higgins was one of the few non-crazy speakers there

Sometimes psychotic people can effect a surprising facade of normalcy.

I’ve met Laurie Higgins and she’s genuinely not a hateful person… She’s wrong. Very wrong. Embarrassingly wrong. But that’s about the extent of it. I don’t see her as a hateful person.

Hemant, she believes we’re going to hell. In my book, that’s the very definition of hatefulness.

So gay marriage = incest, polygamy, and pedophilia.

I actually think that’s a mischaracterization of the letter you quoted. She’s not saying that those things are equivalent (not here, at least), she’s saying a simplistic argument that “gay marriage won’t hurt your straight marriage” misses the point and could be equally applied to other circumstances. She then goes on to say that changing defining “marriage” to include gay people will “will affect the public’s conception of marriage”. She may not be entirely wrong there, although there are other factors at work as well.

Now, what she does miss is that the argument really isn’t a simple as “it won’t hurt your particular marriage for gay people to marry”. That argument is largely a straw man. It’s about equal protection under the law. It’s about laws based on evidence and reason rather than ignorance, fear, and scripture. She certainly isn’t willing to look at the relative good health of marriage in states like Massachusetts where same-sex marriage is legal.

This doesn’t really affect my opinion that they deserve the ‘hate group’ label for spreading fear based on mistruths, but I do think we should be careful with our rhetoric.

Edit: Looking at comments added while I was typing, I have to say that The Godless Monster has a good point, and I’d rather see the “Hate Group” designation reserved for groups that advocate violence.

I have to agree with the majority here: a polite bigot spouting hateful ideologies is still hateful. My response when people try to defend such people is always “I bet Hitler was kind to somebody once, too.” Hate is not just about violence, and is often more dangerous when it’s seeped in slowly with gentle words rather than screamed and shouted with bats and rakes. Many people will react negatively to watching someone beat someone else for being gay (although not all, unfortunately) but will sit quietly and listen, perhaps even contemplatively, while someone describes how gays will destroy America, hurt children, disrupt marriage and poison our society. Have someone tell you you’re going to hell and that your a pedophile and pervert and an agent of Satan on your wedding day, then tell me how that’s not hate because the words were delivered by a kind person with a nice face. Sorry, my friend, but she doesn’t get a pass in my book if she continues to spread these messages.

Higgins is definitely hateful towards homosexuals. No doubt about that.

I disagree with “godless monster”. The IFI IS a hate group, just like the KKK.

My great uncle was a Grand Dragon in the KKK. They preached hate, handed out flyers, held parades, burned crosses on their own property, but never once committed any violence.

The “elements of violence or unlawful activity” were “entirely missing from the equation” the entire time (decades) that I knew what the KKK was up to due to my great uncle being the grand dragon, yet would anyone deny it is a hate group? No.

The leaders of the KKK don’t go around murdering black people, they preach hate. They try to get people to think it’s right and proper to hate blacks, then people think they are justified in bullying or doing violence to black people. The IFI is no different. No different at all except in who they try to teach people to hate.

Some folks seem to have trouble discerning between a group that is hateful and what is a hate group. Maybe not all of you who have commented up to this point are Americans, in which case I can chalk it some of it up to cultural differences.
Nobody can seriously argue that the groups in question are not hateful, I am merely asserting that in the parlance of the day -based on past, established common and legal usage- the term “hate group” is associated with groups like the Klan.
Yes, I agree these groups and the individuals that make them up are despicable and hateful, but according to common usage, would not have qualified as “hate groups” in the past. If we are going to be moving the goalposts constantly and redefining the enemy according to the latest whim, it does very little to establish our side as serious. Leave the whining and hand-wringing emotion out of it, and we can deal with these scumbags more effectively.
Also, anyone who asserts that homosexuality is not in conflict with the Bible is in serious error. Read the book. It’s a guidebook for homophobes, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, slavers, etc.
@ Phoebe…personal anecdotes do not make for a valid argument. I am also personally familiar with the activities of right-wing groups. I am also aware of their history. In addition, they were a part of my professional study curriculum in my past career. It’s silly and dangerous to make no distinction between groups like the IFI and the Klan. As to the assertion that your great uncle never committed a crime…wanna bet? You can only assert that he was never charged or convicted of a crime…no more, no less. Stick to facts and your argument will carry further.

I really believe you need to rethink your definition of what a hateful person is.

Hate is hate is hate, no matter how nicely it’s delivered.

Really, I’m disappointed in you.

Oh, and Phoebe, I’ll second Godless Monster. Whether or not your great uncle actually resorted to violence or law breaking (I too am skeptical that he’s squeaky clean just because he hasn’t been caught) doesn’t clear an organization that certainly has and doesn’t exactly advocate peace and tolerance now. What the hell do you think it means when they burn a cross on private property? Do you think they’re calling for nonviolence against those they hate or that it’s a symbol for something quite different than that?

I’ve met enough people to know that they don’t have to be obvious about it to be hateful. I can’t say that I’ve met Higgins before, but I’m going to assume that the reason she’s not screaming at the top of her lungs with spit flinging from her lips is because she’s secure in her “knowledge” of homosexuality. I hate to only invoke fictional characters, but she’s sounds like (still haven’t actually met her) Nurse Ratchet or Professor Umbridge. She’s able to blindside you by being as non-threatening as possible at first glance.

Someone already mentioned it, but where’s the Westboro Baptist Church? Is it because they don’t have to put them on this list for people to want to smack them? The only time they’re mentioned in the SPL Center article is in the exerpt for the Dove Outreach Center. So I don’t think it just slipped their mind.

I do hope this mentality, with the help of the internet, is brought down a few more thousand pegs before I have kids. I don’t want them growing up having to fight against a brick wall of ignorance.

@Tim:

Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical should definitely qualify an organization as a hate group.

Working on Saturdays is unbiblical (before sunset, that is). Indeed allowing people who work on Saturdays to live is unbiblical: the bible says quite clearly and repeatedly that such people should be put to death. Am I being hateful for pointing this out?

If I were to propose that people actually follow the biblical commandments, however, then yes: that ought to get me arrested.

@Goddless Monster, no, it does not violate free speech. SPLC has the right to say what it likes about these groups. The anti-queer groups can cry all of the crocodile tears they want about it, SPLC has the right to express its opinions as well. SPLC is a private organization, not a governmental law making body. It is also worth noting that the SPLC has a long, long history of battling the Klan. The first president of SPLC was Julian Bond, formerly of SNCC. Tracking and legally battling white supremecists groups is one of its central activites. This group has been directly threatened with murder and bombings by the Klan. If anyone knows how nasty the Klan and neo-nazis are, it is these people. You might disagree with how the SPLC designates hate groups (I do not), but to claim it is minimizing Klan violence is flat out absurd.

@Phoebe, I have personally dealt with the Klan and with neo-nazis before, and I have found what you said to be very true. Those at the top do not personally commit crimes, they have a sort of outer circle of thugs who do that. Anti-queer and anti-choice violent groups operate similarly, they teach hate and elimination of the target group, but they maintain a careful illusion of distance from their footsoldiers.

@Hemant, I wanted to join in on saying that someone who hates queer people and dedicates their life to stripping us of rights and destroying our lives is hateful.

they’re hate groups alright. mostly: self-haters in the Closet. i don’t really worry about most of them, tho. not like i do the Klan or other neo-Nazi groups with a commitment to physical violence. did you see any videos from the NOM tour this summer? the one where they went on a bus and stopped in big cities rallying to “save marriage” from us homos? heh. if there were 25 supporters at any of them, you really couldn’t tell. after a few counter-protesters starting putting up the videos of the pathetically low turnout, the NOM people started getting the cops to make the pro-equality people to stand so far away that taking the videos was hard.

cowards, wimps and closet cases: that’s what these groups are. i love the SPLC, but i almost think they’re wasting their time with these con artists. that list will be a lot shorter, in about 15 years or so, when the last of the fundie bluehairs who give them money dies off and they can’t find younger suckers willing to pay them.

I’ve met Laurie Higgins and she’s genuinely not a hateful person.

What is a hateful person?

When you look at pictures of lynchings in the old South, you don’t see people yelling and screaming. It’s a carnival atmosphere. You see smiling faces. They brought their kids. They even took photographs and turned them into postcards.

You don’t see them red-faced and screaming, and mere displays of anger, or use of violence, is what makes a person “hateful”. Otherwise various injustices would not have been considered “hateful”. Separate drinking fountains, sitting at the back of a bus, and in a striking parallel – restrictions on marriage rights.

These kinds of actions exemplify what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil“:

It describes the thesis that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

Laurie must be proud. I wonder where she will place her trophy? I have a suggestion, but it’s not pretty.

I’ve met Laurie Higgins and she’s genuinely not a hateful person.

Oh, Hemant. *shaking my head sadly* May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless your hopelessly naive little heart.

You are what you do. You are what you do. You are what you do. You are what you do.

Not what you say you are.
Not how you present your demeanor.
Not the softness of your voice.
Not the expression on your face.

What does Laurie Higgens do? She constantly, consistently, with great energy and dedication promotes hate and fear of people who mean her no harm. She spreads lies, and is unwilling to admit that they are lies, despite powerful evidence that they are lies. She takes advantage of people’s ignorance, childish naivete, and predilection to hating and fearing anything they’re told to hate and fear by authority figures, all to further her own selfish ends.

She does the work of hate, so what she is is hateful. You are what you do. Making nice faces and pleasant tones over coffee is irrelevant.

She reminds me of Dolores Umbridge, the sadistic character in the Harry Potter novels whose manners and deportment become sweeter the more viciously she torments someone.

Laurie must be proud. I wonder where she will place her trophy? I have a suggestion, but it’s not pretty.

Lol, that’s great. It sort of goes along with what I was going to say.

It’s not nice, but we’re all thinking it.

She’s a total twat.

Which is perhaps the place or nearby region of which she can place her trophy.

@Godless Monster, did you get amnesia about your comment at 9:31 am? You are confusing freedom of speech with freedom from criticism. “Better to teach the next generation how to think logically and compassionately than violate the rights of a few in the current generation.” SPLC has in no way violated these group’s rights or their freedom of speech. Whining about how any criticism is ‘silencing’ is not actually talking about free speech or rights, it is supposing some sort of right not to be criticized. Also, I mentioned SPLC’s anti-Klan work, becuase you are whining about how their system reflects seriousness of Klan violence, but this is something which this group knows far better than you. “As right-wing extremist groups started to lose membership and became more and more marginalized…” Are we living in the same country? White nationalism is experiencing a resurgence, not a decrease.

I have to disagree with Godless Monster on this, I think most of these groups are clearly hate groups and ought to be labeled as such.

Advocates from these groups HAVE called for some pretty disgusting violence against LGBTers, helping to create the atmosphere in Uganda that laid the grounds for their “Kill-the-gays” bill & actually defending the bill back in the US. Some of them have even openly called for the death penalty to be applied for homosexual acts here at home, for example, “American Vision”:

DeMar has modified that dictum slightly in the past, saying that homosexuals wouldn’t all be executed under a “reconstructed” government, but that he did believe that the occasional execution of “sodomites” would serve society well because “the law that requires the death penalty for homosexual acts effectively drives the perversion of homosexuality underground, back into the closet.” More recently, while hosting American Vision’s “The Gary DeMar Show” in December 2009, Joel McDurmon, the group’s research director, agreed that the Bible does call for killing homosexuals. And, he said, “when most of a society is Christian, is biblical, then it [execution of gays] is perfectly normal; it should definitely be in place.”

They also have a pattern of regularly fighting anti-discrimination laws, hate crimes legislation, and anti-bullying programs and statutes (implicitly seeking to legitimatize an environment where LGBT persons are in physical danger).

If they said the same thing about Jewish folk as they did about LGBT persons there would be no doubt that they are “hate groups” (hell, a number of them are both anti-gay and holocaust revisionists, claiming that gays ran the Nazi party and that homosexuals were never persecuted under Hitler’s regime). Anti-gay groups may not, like some of their white supremacist counterparts, exist to demand violence against their targets, but they sure do demand intimidation, shaming, and action to take away full rights from LGBT people. As the SPLC says these groups deliberately spread vicious lies about the LGBT community in order to influence public opinion (including commissioning sham scientific studies): about the pathology of same-sex attraction or being transgendered, about relationships to children, about AIDS and other STDs, about the causes of being gay or transgendered, etc.

These groups want to marginalize LGBT people and maintain their status as 2nd-class citizens. The fact that these groups largely do not operate through calling for violence does not change the fact that they are waging a campaign to intimidate queer persons into shame and silence, through channels that sometimes call for the removal of basic human rights (not even marriage, but right to find work, to have custody of a biological child, to free association, etc.).

These groups aren’t included on the list merely because they’ve said something hateful once before or even necessarily because they support anti-gay legislation, it is because they have a clear and persistent pattern of releasing untrue and extremely inflammatory propaganda against the LGBT community for the sole purpose of demonizing them. To me this clearly constitutes a “hate group”: they are a group that exists to spread animus and discrimination against some target population of people.

I guess a lot depends on what you mean by the word “hateful.” What does it mean to be hateful? Just because you think someone is going to hell, does that mean that you are hateful? Many people think that Hitler is going to hell, but the average Joe would not say that they are being hateful for thinking Hitler is going to hell. Catholics used to believe that only Catholics could make it into heaven. Does that mean that all Catholics hate non-Catholics because the Catholics thought the non-Catholics were going to hell? If someone is hateful just because he thinks someone else is going to hell, then there have been a lot of hateful people in this world. Just because someone thinks that I am going to hell does not mean that they are a hateful person. It could be that they are just plain wrong. Isn’t everyone entitled to their own opinion?

As far as hate goes, is it only those that are against gay marriage that are hateful or are those that are for gay marriage hateful too (hating those who are in opposition to them)? Why did the signers of a petition to repeal Washington State’s civil unions law want their names protected? This case went all the way to the Supreme Court and was settled in June of this year. It seems to me that the signers of this petition feared that there would be retaliation against them for their signing this petition. People do not usually take something all the way to the Supreme Court without having a just cause, though this may happen, it is not typical. People associated with Proposition 8 in California claim that they were harassed by homosexual activists. Are the claims of the supporters of Proposition 8 unwarranted or are the homosexual activists hating the anti-homosexual activists?

Although this may not be the case with all anti-homosexual activists, I would think that most of them would say that they hate the homosexual action and not the person. Such as one can hate someone’s actions without hating them. Joe can hate that I stole his wallet without hating me, though it may be difficult.

badkungfu wrote:

what she does miss is that the argument really isn’t a simple as “it won’t hurt your particular marriage for gay people to marry”. That argument is largely a straw man

I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely NOT a straw man. One of the endlessly repeated vacuous ‘arguments’ from the anti-same-sex-marriage side is that it would undermine traditional marriage, that it is an ‘attack’ on traditional marriage.

That’s the ONLY reason that the phrase “it won’t affect my marriage” has been uttered at all ~ in response to the above nonsense.

Sorry, there’s no strawman there.

kat wrote:

If they said the same thing about Jewish folk as they did about LGBT persons there would be no doubt that they are “hate groups”

Exactly.

What does that tell us? That disparaging/demonizing/discriminating against homosexual people isn’t taken as seriously as the same egregious behaviour directed towards other minority groups…..

And a significant reason for this is the cry of ‘but my religion says its wrong’ tripe. So frigging what? If I adhered to a religion that dictated that Christians are the devil’s minions here on earth and we’re ‘commanded’ to speak out to that effect, do you think the general reaction would be quite as ‘meh’? I don’t think so.

In my opinion some commenters are overstretching the term hate a little bit. In most of the stated examples or comparisons the term “hate” is applied on people who are just uneducated or plain stupid. The “you are going to hell” phrase for example. If someone is willfully applying this term on someone, it may be hate or the ohter option: plain stupidity as this phrase is what they’ve been told in their indoctrination. They are victims of their own mental immaturity as they only repeat what others told them or they just don’t know any better. That stated i want to say Laurie may not be a hatefull person but at least a dumb one

Maybe I’m just naïve, but why does thinking that someone is going to hell make them a “hateful” person? So, let me get this straight. If I want to be a “loving” person rather than “hateful” person, I must believe that no one is going to hell. This seems to be more of a matter of belief than of hate. Jesus spoke about hell, so would you say that Jesus was a hateful person?

The Bible has a long list of people who are going to hell (1 Cor 6:9-10). It says that the fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, and swindlers are going to hell. It seems that the homosexuals seem to be more bent out of shape than any of the other groups mentioned. Why is that?

I do not understand why everyone is not entitled to their own opinion. It seems to me like this is viewpoint discrimination. Who gets to decide which opinions are permitted and which opinions are outlawed and what standard is used to determine which opinions are acceptable?

Jeff, you say that I am incorrect in my belief that “Just because someone thinks that I am going to hell does not mean that they are a hateful person.” How can I know that you are not being “hateful” in telling me that I am just plain wrong? It seems to me that as soon as the anti-homosexual crowd says anything negative about homosexuality, then they are labeled as being “hateful.”

Is it “hateful” to say anything that contradicts the view of another? It appears that this is where we are headed and it is not beneficial to anyone. Obviously everyone’s point of view cannot be right because many people’s point of view contradicts that held by others. We can also learn how to better articulate our point of view from those who contradict us, so not giving everyone an opinion could turn out to hurt us.

I’ve taken heat for expressing this opinion before, but the reality is a majority of Christians who believe 2/3 of the world will go to hell, also don’t want that to happen, which is one of the main reasons for all the proselytizing. In a sort of twisted way, making sure they regularly remind us of this, and of how we can avert this fate, they’re actually doing the loving thing, not the hateful thing, and it’s got to be frustrating for them to hear us call their earnest efforts to save us from hell hateful. So I try to take it for what it is.

I wholeheartedly agree that a God who would make 2/3 of the world’s population immortal for the purpose of eternal torture, just for doubting something for which he has failed to provide sufficient evidence, is a pretty vindictive bastard. However, although I’ve run into plenty of folks on the internet who are just tickled pink knowing that’s where we’re purportedly headed, most of the folks in real life who tell us we’re going to hell do so out of genuine concern.

@bernerbits

I agree. Most of the people who believe in a theistic God are better than the God they believe in.

Isn’t everyone entitled to their own opinion?

No.

Wow. I can’t believe somebody here would say that. Well Jeff, you are entitled to your opinion just as much as everybody. It’s a good thing you don’t get to decide what opinion everybody gets to have. I’d hate to live in that echo chamber.
There’s no law against hate. You can’t govern people’s thoughts. What is somebody’s opinion? It’s what they think about a given topic. Until you can crank up the Dream Police and start controlling thought it’s my opinion that yes everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

Maybe I’m just naïve, but why does thinking that someone is going to hell make them a “hateful” person? So, let me get this straight. If I want to be a “loving” person rather than “hateful” person, I must believe that no one is going to hell. This seems to be more of a matter of belief than of hate. Jesus spoke about hell, so would you say that Jesus was a hateful person?

This is just too stupid even to bother responding to.

Silent Service, Rooster, Jeff P. – Eternal damnation is whole other matter. If you people can’t see that, I can’t be bothered trying to explain it to you.

I’m unsubscribing from this thread now. I’m not going to wast my time arguing over whether or not a woman who believes in – in fact, eagerly anticipates – the eternal torment of most of the rest of humanity is a hateful person. It’s sad that you can’t seem to get this on your own.

I suddenly feel inexplicably compelled to start playing some Cheap Trick…

YES!!!! I can even Jedi Mindtrick somebody over the internet.

@Silent Service

I’m not LGBT (didn’t know if you were assuming that in your post or not), but I agree with most of what you said.

With regards to these two pieces,

eternity with their doG is worth any price in this world, even bullying and abuse if we turn to doG at the last moment for salvation.

Forcing us to conform for our own good out of love and if we get harassed, beaten, abused, or murdered along the way, it’s our own fault. If we’d just behaved properly like doG wants, nobody would abuse or murder us.

I cannot say if it applies to a majority of Christians or not, but most of the Christians I knew growing up were pretty conservative and still found the actions of these people utterly reprehensible (though ostensibly if you murder a non-believer, you take away any future chance they might have of coming to faith). Growing up we were always taught that any sinner was to be compelled with love and compassion, not hate and violence.

I don’t know if I have a point at all here. I guess if it were anything, it would be that, if any bridges are to be built, maybe we shouldn’t be throwing the term “hate” around so freely.

What rights do married people have that unmarried people do not have?

Lots, though this has been covered before. People can be denied access to visit their unmarried partners in hospitals. People usually cannot share in a partner’s insurance benefits unless they are married. In homosexual relationships with a biological child, the non-biological parent has no rights at all in custody hearings.

Why do people want to get married in the first place? I can understand that the religious want to get married so that they do not fornicate and can stay true to their religion, but if you are not religious, it seems like it would just tie you down. If you decide to get a divorce, then you have to go through the courts which may take a while.

I would think the ideal is that people get married out of love and a desire to express their commitment to someone for the rest of their life, not for procreation. If people really think, “I’d like to have some kids. Better find me a wife/husband!” then it would give me cause to really fear for the state of marriage in this country.

And I find it rather ignorant that you’d suggest atheists have no reason not to be promiscuous because we have no religion to forbid it.

It seems like the ideal family should have one male father and one female mother. The father can teach the boys how to be gentlemen and the mother can teach the girls how to be ladies.

All reputable psychological studies indicate this particular argument holds no water in real life.

Rooster said:

I’m just curious what evidence it would take to convince you of his existence. Have you looked into Dr. Behe’s idea of irreducible complexities in cells?

For me, seeing the stars in the night sky suddenly re-arrange to spell out something like “I am God and I am here” would get my attention.

I’ve read Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box” and am only convinced that if a coherent argument can be shown that a system has “irreducible complexity”, this only indicates that we don’t yet have a an understanding of how the system originated. It doesn’t necessarily indicate that the system was created by a creator. At best, Behe shows some areas of biochemistry where more research is needed. At worst, he distorts what is already known to reconcile his own religious beliefs.

Rooster, before we go any further, I’d just like you to know that although I understand that you desire to to rehash old arguments with me out of a spirit of genuine good will, I would also appreciate if you allow me to be responsible for my own eternal fate. If there’s an ocean full of drowning people, and one person resists being rescued, your time is better served going after someone else, after all.

Just ignore the Rooster, er, Troll, er, Rooster; whatever it is. Anybody silly enough to bring up Irreducible Complexity which has been so completely refuted for decades it isn’t considered an argument anymore, claim that there are no rights given to married heterosexuals that aren’t given to others when there are thousands just at the Federal level, and thinks that marriage is primarily for procreation and child raising when most of our married lives are not spent raising children unless you’ve got a Quiverfull up your theology, hasn’t bothered to even examine the existing evidence or research the ongoing debate before touching the keyboard. Tell him to go crack the books and research the counter-arguments before reposting for the billionth time all the same old canards we see every single week. Then ignore the lazy troll until he does.

@bernerbits I’ve actually argued that prosletyzing is a sign of concern myself. People who want to convert you are showing that they really believe you’re destined for hell and they really don’t want that to happen, and are willing to spend time and effort to prevent it.

However I would go further and say that most people don’t actually believe that a huge proportion of the population is going to hell. Think of it this way. If you knew that X group of people was routinely taken off the streets and then slowly tortured to death by the government you, and any decent minded person, would find this unacceptable and protest. The only way non-protest would even be an option is if you really hated the victims. A hate strong enough to lead to indifference when confronted with the torture of men, women and children is an emotion strong enough that it would manifest in other ways. Someone you hate enough to be ok with their torture is not someone you’ll smile at in the morning, someone you can have a coffee with or even like living in your own neighborhood. Muslim terrorists act like this. They think we’re going to hell and would like to hurry the process along if possible. The vast majority of Christians however do not act like they hate us enough for them to be ok with our eternal torture. That kind of hate would be far too evident to not be noticable, so I think it’s fair to conclude that they don’t actually believe it, whatever they profess.

I’ve taken heat for expressing this opinion before, but the reality is a majority of Christians who believe 2/3 of the world will go to hell, also don’t want that to happen, which is one of the main reasons for all the proselytizing. In a sort of twisted way, making sure they regularly remind us of this, and of how we can avert this fate, they’re actually doing the loving thing, not the hateful thing, and it’s got to be frustrating for them to hear us call their earnest efforts to save us from hell hateful. So I try to take it for what it is.

I wholeheartedly agree that a God who would make 2/3 of the world’s population immortal for the purpose of eternal torture, just for doubting something for which he has failed to provide sufficient evidence, is a pretty vindictive bastard. However, although I’ve run into plenty of folks on the internet who are just tickled pink knowing that’s where we’re purportedly headed, most of the folks in real life who tell us we’re going to hell do so out of genuine concern.

If they were truly loving instead of just covering their delusional asses, they’d say “Fuck you God, hell is evil. I’d rather go to hell than have any part in this.”