LGBT vs. Conservative Christians: Two sides of the same coin?

The LGBT community and the Christian conservative community are not two sides of the same coin with extremes that are just as bad as the other. When an LGBT activist and a Christian conservative “agree to disagree,” they walk away from the argument with the status quo unchanged. This is a status quo undeniably, irreconcilably, and ridiculously tilted in favor of the religious person.

Because religious people enjoy rights that an LGBT does not. All kinds of rights. They literally take it as persecution when they are not allowed to control things using their religion as a foundation for law. Also, mischaracterization of LGBT people and Christians does occur - but let’s dig deeper into that, because those are not equivalents either. Mischaracterization of a Christian may manifest itself into being called a “bigot” or a funny cartoon in The Onion. Mischaracterization of a gay person may result in accusations of pedofilia, “sinful” behavior, and even death/hate crimes.

So what bothers me the most about this argument of false equivalency is that both sides are just as bad as the other and in order to be “middle of the road” let’s call out the “bad stuff” in the LGBT community because surely they are just as bad as the “bad stuff” in the Christian conservative community! I mean, we’re both just two sides in the culture war, right?

Except one side is fighting for rights, and the other side is fighting to take those rights away. One side has come up with attack after attack along the lines of “let’s put gay people behind electric fences” and “gay people deserve death” while the other side comes up with a “well god isn’t real and you’re a bigot.”

One side has a higher murder rate, suicide rate, and hate crime rate. The other side cries persecution when gay people push BACK.

I agree with being civil. I agree with trying to change people’s minds we don’t agree with. They are, in fact, the people we NEED to be reaching.

I don’t agree with doing that at the expense of our convictions, with appeasing the other side by saying “our extreme is just as bad as yours,” and pretending like we are just two players in a game of chess who have reached a stalemate.

Because we are winning, after all. So far. We have a president who just came out in favor of same-sex marriage. We have a major party who has just added marriage equality into their platform. We have every reason in the world to be optimistic - and I, for one, would like to win our rights without having to throw ourselves at the mercy of those who have, time and time again, proven they just don’t fully recognize our humanity.