I grew up in southern West Virginia and lived most of my life there, so I know that fundamentalism produces a lot of busy bodies. If you're taught and you come to believe you know the truth, you might not have much respect for the opinions of others or accept that their journey may not be your own. If you convince yourself that you're literally saving your neighbor from hell, you might lose all respect for their privacy and right to live according to their own lights. If you tie your own supposed salvation to the supposed salvation of your neighbor, you might become a first class pain in the backside.
Just the other day, Tony Perkins suggested that he had an obligation to attack and oppress LGBT people because he was supposedly attempting to save them from hell.
I wonder how such people would feel if someone came up with a totally new religion that supposedly game them the authority to nose around in their life and tell them what to do. Of course, many fundamentalists wouldn't even understand that because they have been exposed to fundamentalist thinking to such a degree and at the near exclusion of any other points of view, they don't get how someone could see things differently.
Growing up, I had a friend whose "religious" father would rather his son be a mass murderer than a queer. As a recovered catholic I am happy that growing up as such, for me, sex will ALWAYS be Dirrty! HAH! Thanks for all you do on here!
ReplyDeleteDanTX