S3bbl3s, and everybody else, you have to understand the difference between beliefs and rights. I'll give you an example:
I believe that fat women should not wear hip-huggers. I am entitled to that belief. But if it is my belief that fat women should not have the right to wear hip-huggers, my belief is wrong because I am trying to take away someone's rights. Do you see the difference?
Christians of a certain ilk believe that I am sinful to indulge my homosexuality, and they have the right to believe that if they so choose; however, if they also believe that I should not have the right to conduct my affairs as I see fit (so long as I'm not hurting anybody else), then they are impingeing on my basic human rights and are, therefore, wrong. See how that works?
Here's the difference between right and wrong: right does good to people, wrong does harm to people. That's all there is to it. Anything that makes me happy and doesn't harm you or anyone else is good; anything I do that harms anyone, even people I don't know, is bad. Do you see the difference there?
(Oh, and by the way, not believing what you believe, doing things that you think are wrong even though you can't prove they are wrong, and offending your artificial morality is not harm; that's life).
So to go further, if my interpretation of my religious texts lead me to believe that I can harm someone else, then I am wrong no matter how much good I think I am doing to that person; and if I go even further and teach other people to do even more harm to those someone-elses, if I go so far as to incite hatred and violence against those who believe differently than I believe... then I am not just wrong, I am perpetrating evil. See the difference there?
Gay marriage harms no one, and nobody has ever given a lick of proof, or even a scintilla of the possibility of a theory pointing toward some future proof, that it will harm anyone (keeping in mind that offending your religious principles does not qualify as "harm"); on the other hand, the law against gay marriage harms many, and if you want proof of that, all you have to do is read a few stories about people who were cut out of inheriting their partners' property by a family that wouldn't have anything to do with him when he was alive, or were not allowed to be with their partners in the hospital as they lay dying. Do you see that difference?
Lying harms people; cheating on your partner harms people; doing methamphetamine and fucking hookers on the sly while married and preaching against perfectly innocent people you don't even know harms people (yourself in particular)... two men in a loving and committed relationship, or five hundred men fucking themselves silly in a bathhouse, harm no one. See the difference there?
By teaching people to hate homosexuals, particularly if they are themselves homosexuals (which no matter which way you chew it is hypocrisy on a grand scale), these "ministers" are teaching people to go against their own religion. And if you think God (even the hateful judgemental God these people believe in) is going to let that one slide just because your intentions are good, well just you wait and see on Judgement Day.
You know, I am failing to comprehend how anybody can submit themselves to a belief-system which harms them and makes them unhappy. When I came to the conclusion that my church would not accept my homosexuality, I left that church and never looked back; and I cannot see why someone would abase themselves to the point that they would believe in something that says your natural desires, desires which harm no one, are sinful! I mean, it's easy for straights to condemn homosexuality, they don't understand it and it simply doesn't apply to them; but try as I might, I cannot understand homosexuals condemning homosexuality. That's just sick.
I do feel sorry for Haggart, I am sorry that he hates himself so much; I am sorry for his family and hope they recover from the grand betrayal they've just experienced at his hands; and in a vague pitying way I feel sorry for his parishioners for the shock they must be feeling.
But what he did was wrong... not being gay, but lying and cheating and pretending to be something he wasn't, and then to cover up his real self by spreading his self-hatred over all of us. That was quite simply and inescapably wrong and he will have to pay for that.
