I would have once said they don’t want to attack adultery because it strikes to close to home (too many of their friends do it) but that theory has been disproven by the number of outed anti-gay activists who are gay (being gay also strikes close to home, apparently).

The entire right-wing establishment is all about pride. That cognitive dissonance they practice? It works because The Rules Don’t Apply to Me. I can have Teh ButSexx but I’m Not Gay — in fact, let’s persecute those homos.

Pride is not an ephemereal threat. It really is the basis for the absolute worst things in the world.

Pride can be a virtue. But like all virtues, carried too far, pride is a vice. Pride is leads to contempt for others, because the prideful person says, “I am better than he is.” Pride leads to the abandonment of compassion, as the prideful person cannot say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Pride, IMHO, is where many conservatives and libertarians (esp. libertarians) fall. They take credit for both the privileges they have and for their luck. One caller to a liberal talk show bragged about how he saves so much because he doesn’t buy into the “boondoggle” of health insurance. He makes $100,000, and neither he nor his wife have had any serious injuries or illnesses. Yet, rather than acknowledging his good fortune, he railed against those who are “too stupid” to save money like he did, and scorned those of us who need health insurance for various medical conditions.

Because to acknowledge that you are where you are in life is in part just a crap shoot, a result of privilege that you have done nothing to deserve and good luck to avoid disasters, is to humble oneself.

So rather than humble themselves, many conservatives would rather just talk about butt sex. Because one’s sexuality is something that can be controlled. *eye roll*

Unlike the sin of homosexuality, the other sins you cite – the sins of adultery, fornication, racism, pride, jealousy, selfish ambition and drunkenness – do not have the benefit of a tremendously powerful and prosperous lobby. . .

National Beer Wholesalers Assn
American Bankers Assn
Gaming & Casinos

Just sayin . . I don’t recall there ever being a bill introduced — or an amendment proposed which would have forbid adulterers from re-marrying, and it seems the drunkenness (alcohol) industry lobbies more and contributes more money then GLBT ever could dream of. Of course Barber’s equivocations are lame excuses to try to justify his his hatred and demonization of gays and lesbians. It has nothing to do with sin or God and everything to do with creating power from the fear and panic over the other.

OT, but I’d say “yes” and “no”. Drunkeness has enough powerful political allies (plus there’s the memory of prohibition) that EtOH is treated very differently than, um, certain other drugs that otherwise would have similar, or even less severe, societal impacts (if they were legalized).

OTOH, nobody wants to be in favor of drunkeness. So there is no motivation to change all sorts of stupid liquor-related blue-laws (the same is true, pace the religious right, for blue laws in general, eh?).

The point these guys miss so egregiously is that being gay IS an identity, and that there is no such thing as a single “gay lifestyle” nor a single form of “homosexual behavior.”

It’s a bit like reading lists of minority groups that include “gays, blacks and women” — as though there were no black lesbians, or other combinations.

The reason there is no organized group of adulterers is that adultery is not seen as identical to heterosexuality.

It never seems to occur to these people that it is possible to live a gay lifestyle that involves integrity and fidelity, because they can’t get past the buttsex.

Don’t misread me as saying I disapprove of healthy and honest open relationships or heterosexual non-marital sex.

But the reason we won’t go away is that they have defined our existence as a sin. You can say that using your left hand to stab someone in anger is a sin, but you cannot say that simply being left-handed is a sin. Similarly, there are some pretty crappy ways that gay people treat each other, and iindividual gay people who are unhealthy, immoral, and debauched (often, the ones in the closet, apropos of nothing in particular.)

But adultery is something that people do. Being gay is what (some) people ARE. Until they get that, they will continue to bark up the wrong tree.

Besides, in Christ there is neither male nor female, so the whole point ought to be moot for anyone who actually believes in the Book. But since that passage isn’t on the bashing list, I don’t think they read it any more.