Instigate

The NRLW in Australia is an awesome comp and is growing rapidly in viewership too! It’s a great game to watch and young female athletes are finally getting some serious role models they can aspire to as well. I’m not much into rugby union being a New South Welshman but the league games are intense.

While I agree with your sentiment, this isn’t an example of ‘secret’ bigots as the article outlines:

Like a lot of gay New Yorkers, Anthony Tolve and John McGuigan spent the final Sunday in June at the city’s massive Pride parade.

But unlike most other attendees, the two flew massive rainbow flags expressing their support for former President Donald Trump.

Mark Dorman, a retired schoolteacher from the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, said he’s been practically blacklisted from his local gay bar, the Atlas Social Club, for his political affiliation. Dorman said he went public with his Trump love at the pub last summer, and he’s been feeling the anti-MAGA burn since.

British colonialism spread queerphobia. Islamic-governed nations currently push queerphobia. Both are bad, both are regressive, and both have lasting impacts on us today. We can talk about both being bad at once. We can walk and chew gum. We can discuss all of the impacts on queerphobia simultaneously, if we allow ourselves to understand that all issues of humanity are multi-faceted and that blaming a single concept or source for an issue is usually farcical.

There will always be loonies who hate us for being who we are. We shafted the last one we had from our federal government at the last election. We have no laws that cause discrimination towards my comrades and to try to pretend like a few crazies are somehow making being queer illegal is just disingenuous. Please speak to your own context, because you don’t speak for mine.

The point of the article is trying to explain the persistence of anti LGBTQIA+ legislation in the world. This is discussing an alternative (or in scientific terms, confounding variable) that challenges the absolute notions laid out in the article. I have no stake in this argument and am making no points against the British Empire or the Muslim religion, but to state that this discussion isn’t relevant to the article is frankly disingenuous.

As a bisexual man of historical UK origin, I can see and understand both impacts simultaneously. I also think we can discuss all forms of queerphobia simultaneously, and that it does a disservice to all my LGBTQIA+ comrades to dissent genuine discussion over the impacts of both colonialism and religion on the presence of queerphobia just because that’s not the specific angle of this specific article.

Hey man, fair call - take from that information what you will. As a philosophical entity though, I tend to focus on the words that were attributed to Jesus and not the words he didn’t speak. If your reading of the Gospels has you believing that he was pro-slavery, there’s little I can do to convince you otherwise, but I guess I read them in a different context to you. We all take what we want from the written word. I think you’ll find that deep-diving the Gospels would convince you otherwise, as Jesus’ messages of love, care, sacrifice and hope are entirely incongruent with the idea that a person can own another person, but that’s probably just my own interpretation.

Queer Australian checking in here.

…what? Have you ever lived here or know what our laws are?

Hey mate, I don’t want to step on your toes, but what meaningful sacrifice can one anonymous person make for another on a platform like Lemmy? I get where you’re coming from; pretty words are meaningless unless they’re backed up with action, but what action could this person actually take that would meet the definition of ‘sacrifice’?

Just as an aside, love doesn’t always have to include sacrifice. I love my fellow LGBTQIA+ comrades and it doesn’t cost me anything to do so. I love my friends, and they don’t ever demand sacrifice from me. I love my hobbies, and they give me strength and energy. Love can give and bring you strength, if you let it.

I feel this in my bones

Fair call my dude, there are plenty of great role models out there. Out of curiosity, what specific bible verses are you referring to with regards to Jesus being pro-slavery? I’ve had a couple of reads through the New Testament and didn’t get that idea myself, but I’m acutely aware they’re long and cumbersome tomes and I might’ve missed the parts you’re referring to. I know Paul was a fucked up dude who twisted Jesus’ words into his own weird Church, but did Jesus himself ever condone slavery? I can’t remember anything like that in the Gospels.

As a bisexual man who grew up Christian, I feel you. It’s easy to assume our experiences are those that every queer Christian has ever felt. It’s easy to hear the stories of hate, maliciously disguised as ‘love’, and to throw that assumption onto a whole creed of people. I don’t know your story, and you don’t know mine, but one thing I’ve learned that I think might be worth sharing is it’s not a great idea to assume the intent of someone based on a group they belong to.

For so many years I lived in the closet, fearful that my Christian mother wouldn’t accept me. I finally came out to her in my thirties and I was met with nothing but love and acceptance. She actually quoted scripture to me to reinforce why she loved me no matter what. All I’m saying is that true Christian love does exist, and while it may be rare, don’t discount an entire population of people based on our learned notions about them. We humans are biologically trained to recognise patterns, but sadly that same impulse leads to stereotyping. We need to moderate those impulses to give others a fair chance to show they love us.

Anyway, big love to you and yours. I hope that you’ve been able to find acceptance in the family you’ve made for yourself.

There is The Church and then there’s the church - once Christianity becomes large, structured, and hierarchical it strays from the actual words that Jesus spoke. If you ever have the chance, have a read through the Gospels without any of the other bullshit. Just read the stuff that Jesus himself supposedly said. Those words are full of love, care, kindness, sacrifice, giving, sharing, and fully giving up oneself in service of others. The example he set was a great one. I no longer identify as Christian, but Jesus is a damn good role model and actually taught us how to love one another exactly how we are.

I wouldn’t recommend my fellow comrades join some random church, but don’t discount Jesus’ teachings as a philosophical text. I honestly believe that if all Christians were actually Christ-like it would truly be a religion of peace, love and acceptance.

To be clear; semaglutide is a legitimate treatment for diabetes and related conditions that has had an amazing impact on people living with those conditions. One effect of the drug is significantly decreased appetite which usually leads to weight loss as well.

But yeah, celebrities started using it to lose weight and suddenly everyone else wants it too.