I will say that saying you are a Christian means nothing today. Many claim to be Christian but how many actually try to live the life. I saw one interview that asked a Christian if Jesus Christ would condemn LGBTQ people the way that the current hard right does today. The woman said no he would not then said he would be wrong. Now I want that part to sink in. You have Christian saying that the LGBTQ lifestyle condemns them to hell, but you would be very hard press to actually find that in the bible. While being gay can be argued as a sin, there are a hell of a lot of sins in the bible and from my understanding GOD did not distinguish between any of them. Without having confess that Jesus is your lord and savior, you matter how good you believe you are you would still go to hell. Meaning there is no person who has walked this earth that is without sin besides Jesus Christ. Anyway, It's really not worth trying to debate people who say they are Christian but act as if they are without sin or that anyone who does not believe as they do is consigned to hell. The Bible has been used to commit a lot of sin in the name of the Lord and it's still done today. They will walk with the Bible but have never opened it more than to take some line of scripture and twist it to their own purpose.

I wonder if he's tired of winning so much

The Bible is not subtle in its view of gay people; especially of gay men. All mentions of gay men and lesbians in the Bible are extremely negative, with some passages equating same-sex intimacy to murder, for example, and accordingly prescribing execution for gay men. Lesbians are less often discussed in the Bible because women had no freedom to speak of back then anyway, so intimacy between women seemed to be less of a societal worry...although once you get to the New Testament, the apostle Paul noticeably expands the Bible's critique of gay relationships to explicitly include lesbianism once he finds himself in more open societies. Let's not kid ourselves. I know because growing up I was made to memorize and recite most of these passages to one of my Sunday school teachers as part of my punishment after my parents discovered that I had a girlfriend.

Now are there gay people who jump through hoops to retain a sense of Christianity? Of course there are. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg would be an obvious example. The Human Rights Campaign has even authored this very creative re-imagining of the Biblical view of homosexuality for the benefit of those who wish to play that game for the sake of positive memories and friendships or just a sincere need to believe in a higher power or other positive connections they may have to the church, but as I think you'll observe, their re-imagining of the intent behind the passages on gay people feels like more than a small reach just in general.

I mean people can believe what they want to believe and not many today will choose to actually support executing people for being gay despite their ostensible dedication to a strict reading of Biblical scripture because they have more of a conscience than their God does. Some do support it though and many of those who do are Biblical literalists. Or literalists of other mainstream faiths for that matter. For the most part, religion and gay people don't go well together. That's the truth. Gay people tend to have to either subscribe to less common faith persuasions like Wicca or embrace a salad bar approach to their faith to find acceptance within a religious framework. Personally, I've given up on that and count myself an atheist these days.

The problem with using the Old Testament is that before Jesus came, everyone was consigned to purgatory.  In other words, you could not obtain heaven because no matter how good you believe you are you were never clean enough to be in the presence of GOD.  Once Jesus came and washed away everyone sin then there is only a specific thing you must do in order to enter heaven no matter the sin you commit.

In other words, you could kill a thousand people but still enter heaven.  You could commit horrible crimes and sin but still enter heaven.  One of the specific issues with most people is that they know absolutely nothing about the bible and thus are easy prey to people who use specific parts of it as an agenda.  As I stated, many sins have been done in the name of GOD and nothing changes as of today.  When people want to use Christian or Christianity for an agenda, all they have to do is fine some specific text that says something but leave out all relevant contexts.  Now I grew up in the Church but in the Church I grew up in, studying the Bible was something that was pushed from the very beginning.  One of the tenants of our Pastor is how easy people can be deceived into going against GOD because they allow themselves to be used by false prophets.  Meaning, Christians allow themselves to be used by people pretending to be believers in GOD and following his will because they do not know the bible.  

We have many examples of such cases, Slavery.  Many Christians accepted it because they convinced themselves that Black people were descendants of Cain. Inquisition, Witch Hunts, Crusades the list is long.

One main example I love to debate is Trump.  I will save that discussion for another day but he is pretty much what I consider as someone who easily play the role of appearing as a Christian but actually living as one well that is debatable.

Okay. I mean I don't want to hurt you by disputing the central tenets of your faith, but I was raised in a staunchly Christian family myself and grew out of it precisely by learning the historical backdrop against which the Biblical scriptures were written, so rest assured it wouldn't be a difficult task for me to challenge your outlook. A tiny, tiny preview of that would might look like if I were to get serious about doing so though would begin with me pointing out that there was no such thing as purgatory in ancient Judaism and neither is there in today's. Jewish people didn't and don't believe in an afterlife. The words in the Old Testament that Christian writers choose to translate as "hell" all come from words that actually mean "death" or "grave". It might also entail me taking you further back in time to before an of the Biblical scriptures were written, when Yahweh appears to have been originally conceived of as the husband of the creation goddess Ashera. I think that would all be relevant context if we're truly wanting to fill in the gaps here. And much, much, much more. We can get into the nitty gritty of how to properly contextualize and understand Biblical scripture if you really want to. I suspect that somebody's feelings might get hurt though.

The relevant topic we're discussing here though is the treatment of gay people. You seem to be implying that homophobic bigots are not motivated toward those views by their faith, but rather deliberately misconstrue the teachings of the Bible into homophobic ones. You don't provide any concrete counter-evidence to contradict my case though. You substantiate your argument with not a single passage of those scriptures because there isn't one to cite. All references to gay and lesbian people and relationships in the Bible are factually extremely negative, ranging from condemnation to death in the Old Testament to condemnation to hellfire and comparisons to murderers in the New Testament. You choose to ignore and disregard those Biblical teachings because you are decent person with a conscience, not because you understand the Bible better than the predominant scholars thereon. That is the truth. And I think on some level, if you're totally honest with yourself and put away all sentimentality that you may attach you to your faith, you know it. The history of the laws and general treatment of gay people under Christian theocracies throughout history backs up my case that it's not an anomaly, but a feature. Even today, non-homophobic Christians are a minority of the total. Most consider being gay to be intrinsically sinful at minimum. Not an anomaly; a feature. You are the anomaly in that regard and I think you know it. (A welcome anomaly, I might add.)

Those photos have that nostalgic quality:

"It's never a good sign when Sean Hannity is the person fact checking you."

This guy is as shameless a liar as Trump but without the slurring. I really hope his political success is as short lived as DeSantis.

^ Should I feel sad for him? I kinda do, but I feel like I shouldn't. Regardless, it's time to pack it in - along with Feinstein.