Demonizing people for their beliefs

[DirkGently]

18. Not thoughts. Deeds.

The entire notion that "religious" thought permits someone to hurt someone else is specious nonsense.

All that is going on here is that people with extremely conservative social tastes would like to discriminate, punish, or control other people, based on their gender or sexual orientation or their private conduct.

It is legal and permissible that they want to do that. At least, they are free to want to do those things. They are free to talk about why they think we should do those things.

They are not free to do them, consequence free, because they really really think it's okay.

You do not get to hurt people because you disapprove of them, or dislike their "kind" or their sex lives. If try to, you are being a bad person.

And not the slightest additional ethical weight should be given based on the claim that these hyper-conservative social tastes are claimed to be derived from a religious text. Saying that you think your god agrees with you is infintely arguable even to people who believe in the same god, and utterly meaningless to those who don't believe.

My god says to tell you your god is stupid.

Not helpful.

Bad acts are actually bad. Refusing to comply with a federal healthcare mandate on the basis that you would prefer to limit women's reproductive health choices because you have ideas about how they should be conducting themselves sexually is bad. Saying you think your personal deity agrees with you is nonsense.

When you do bad things, you are a bad person in doing that. Want to be a good person? Don't claim the right to hurt people because of your selfish, ignorant, malfunctioning hateful reasoning.