My definition of "Christian" comes from politics because I'm not one. Thus there's no reason to care what you're up to behind closed doors: you do you, knock yourselves out. I couldn't care less about how you define yourselves, it's none of my business, it's not my place to tell you what to do.
It's only when religion steps into the public square and starts stomping around that it becomes my problem.
And there's the point. All I'm saying is "Let the decision making process stop favoring one religion over the others" and you're calling that discrimination. The point is to get rid of discrimination by making decisions on a religiously neutral basis.
As for "political views disagreeing with prevailing norms" - in a democracy, nobody gets to win all the time. That's life. I have a lot of views that disagree with political norms and I just have to live with it. That's how government works. Jon Stewart said of losing "It's supposed to taste like a $#!+ sandwich."
What you guys don't seem to realize is that I've had every aspect of my life dictated by Christianity for going on six decades. I know what that sandwich tastes like. Now the people who've been feeding them to me are finding out just how bad that taste is and they don't like it. Join the club.
Easy example: gay marriage. Fighting it has been a primary organizing principle for Christian conservatives for decades. If a gay couple belongs to a religion that allows them to marry and Christians don't like it, that's an example of religious disagreement. The point is we need a way to settle a disagreement when there's no decision that can satisfy both parties. I'd say, don't use either religion in making it.
So: marriage comes with a host of secular benefits (financial, medical decisions, etc.) Preventing two people from marrying denies them access to those secular advantages. Given that, why has the Christian desire to discriminate always prevailed? Let's make a religiously neutral decision: as long as there are secular consequences to marriage, then marriage should be decided in a secular way. But then Christians start howling that allowing other people to violate their God's rules constitutes persecution of them.
In other words, they are claiming that preventing them from persecuting others constitutes persecution. If your satisfaction with your involvement in the process is predicated on forcing others to live by your rules, then there's the problem.
So clearly I'm missing something. Maybe you can help: what would a Christian (or Jew, Muslim, atheist, none of the above) believe constituted discrimination?
