It is nice that Hunter has the luxury of not worrying about the religions of others. I believe that everyone should have freedom of worship. When others pray I stand silently and respectfully even though I am an atheist. However, I am disturbed by religious groups that step over the line. When my friend decided to leave the Scientologists and started asking questions, he started being asked to go places by members carrying guns. During our battle against the Knight initiative in Ca. (which banned gay marriage), the local Mormon church sent an e mail to its members stating that if they did not fight for this initiative, they would be committing a sin. A local Black city council woman came up to our anti-Knight booth and said that by fighting for gay rights we were putting ourselves above god. I reminded her that people like myself didn't believe in god. She spent the next half hour taking up space in front of our booth being judgmental, rude, bigoted, and ignorant. She started almost every sentence with "My minister says,..." A woman told me that she could not be my room mate in college because there might be gay folks renting other rooms in the house and her minister wouldn't allow that. We have a Christian cult here that uses brain washing to cheat women out of their houses. We have fundamentalist churches here in town which have a large number of white law enforcement members; they have found ways of using public resources for their sect. Reverend Lou Sheldon shows up at our state legislature regularly and brings his pet ministers. They use hate speech against gay folks every time. You know, the kind of nuts who equate gay folks with pedophiles and necrophilliacs? Some local churches get tax exempt status and then tell their members that if they don't vote Republican then they are committing a sin. How about the number of gay teenagers who commit suicide because their religious leaders tell them that they are going to hell? How about Phelps who showed up to Matthew Shepherd's funeral with signs that said "God hates fags"? This jerk also showed up to a lesbian wedding in our city with the same sign.
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