Two tips

[fpb]

First: an old Italian proverb. "You cannot reason with a German, but you can give orders."
Second: only argue with a liberal when they are in the right. The more they are in the wrong, the more they become obstinate and intractable.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I suppose I am going to have to speak out about homosexuality. I really did not want to, because there is no topic, in my experience - not excluding abortion - on which people more quickly become hysterical, persecution-minded and obsessional. Nothing is less gay, in the sense of joyful, happy, luminous, than the average liberal when faced with the issue of homosexuality and its moral status; just the other day, Icarusancalion, who claims to be a Buddhist, just shrieked and howled me right out of her LJ page for no other reason than I had objected to being called a "nutjob" just because I oppose homosexual separatism. The position of the average liberal on this matter is profoundly illiberal: you are not allowed to say anything about homosexuality that is not wholly positive, and if you do, woe betide you. If you take that position, I strongly suggest you defriend me right now, because I am not going to compromise or flatter.

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Tough luck on that one, alas. I think it's just as bad to force someone against their religious convictions to accept homosexuality as it is to force someone against their non-religious convictions to not accept it, thus I can see where you're coming from. I think tolerating and accepting are different things, and though I actively support it and promote tolerance within my own community through participation in many gay-themed events here, it's not particularly my place to force my own stance upon someone with such devout beliefs. On the line of tolerating, however, is a different matter: people should tolerate, if only because people don't have to be Christian or religious, thus shouldn't have to be ruled by a moral guideline that doesn't apply to their own faith or belief system.

Please feel free to disagree on this point.

(By separatism, I suppose you're speaking of the Gay Games incident and your opposition on the grounds that if they're that good at athletics they should just perform in the major Olympics. I don't know precisely where you're coming from on this one.)