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(Excerpts of a conversation in progress - some content removed because context can’t be provided)

“No, because rapists and murderers are not consenting, they're abusing others. Once again, you do not understand informed consent.” ----- I do understand what informed consent it. But you still haven’t cited why informed consent makes behavior moral or not.

“No, because you do not understand the concept of consent.” ---- I do. And a child can provide consent. Your hang-up is “legal” consent. If the legal system has no definition of age required for consent, is having relations with an 8 year old moral or immoral? And why?

“You fail to understand the difference between consent and abuse.” ----- You’ve shown NO connection between the two. You’ve FAILED to show why a child cannot give consent – other than “It’s the law”. So, I ask again, since slavery was legal, is slavery moral?

“If they find nothing wrong with rape or murder, yes their morals are wrong.” ----- HOW can you make this claim that their morals are wrong?

“All right, go ahead and abuse a child.” ----- Again, HOW is it abuse if (the child) consents?

“Says the law. Age of consent laws exist for a reason.” ----- So, the law is the arbiter of what is/isn’t moral? I guess slavery was moral, right? What about countries/societies that don’t have laws regarding age of consent – are relations with children moral in those instances?

“And you have elected to believe your denomination is right and the rest are wrong.” ----- Not “the rest” – just those who reject God and His word. But the same could be said of YOU, right? You reject anyone that doesn’t believe the same way you do. How is that any different than what you accuse me of doing?

“- No, I'm asserting that you have what everyone else has - an interpretation, which means you're just as wrong as everyone else and no one can agree about things because you're all so sure you've chosen the 100% correct understanding.” ----- Upon WHAT AUTHORITY can you claim that I am wrong? How can YOU be sure that YOU’VE CHOSEN the “correct” morals? You cannot even cite an authoritative source for those morals.

“You're trying to give it the answer you want, but you can't do that.” ---- I am using how words are defined.

“People don't commit murder because they believe it's acceptable...come on. They do it out of desperation in their situation and because they no longer care and have lost the ability to reason.” ----- So, now you are a psychologist and can claim to know the motivations of every murderer?

“I love the way you think any two people on earth can just make the decision to copulate and it's going to work out peachy.” ----- When did I ever assert that any behavior will “work out peachy”? Why do you insist on asserting that I’ve said things I haven’t actually said?

“Desires you feel you have the right to tell people to squash because of your religion.” ----- FALSE. All that I’ve simply stated is that homosexual behavior is immoral. People “squash” emotions and desires all of the time.

“Not confused at all. I never said our parents got everything right.” ----- Yet you DID say that you learn your morals from your parents – that your parents are your moral authority.

“We get older and our brains develop and we learn for ourselves what good morals are.” ----- “Good” based upon WHAT? You are essentially saying that YOU are your own moral authority. If someone’s morals allow for murder or rape, is that acceptable? If not, then upon WHAT AUTHORITY can one assert something is good/bad, moral/immoral?

“that as we learn to think for ourselves that we don't need a holy book to tell us what's right and wrong.” ---- Upon WHAT BASIS can you determine something to be right or wrong, moral or immoral? You haven’t answered that simple question. You keep going on and on about “learning what is right and wrong”, yet have NEVER cited a source for what is right and wrong. If someone grows up learning that murder and rape are moral, how can you say that murder and rape aren’t moral?

“This is the last time I'm going to humor you on this subject since you don't know and have no desire to know the difference between consent and abuse.” ----- Again, you continue to FAIL to cite an authoritative source for why abuse is wrong, or where not providing legal consent is a qualifier of abuse. You have FAILED to show why, in a society where there is no law regarding age of consent, it is immoral to have relations with a child who has consented.

“We take rapists and murderers out of circulation when they engage in this behavior because it's abuse and it's illegal.” ----- But WHY are those acts immoral? Why are “abuse” and “illegal behavior” immoral? WHAT AUTHORITY asserts that these acts are immoral?

“We don't do the same with homosexuals because they decide to engage in a sexual act because it's not abuse. No one gets hurt.” ----- Whether one gets hurt or not doesn’t determine morality.

“Yes. Age of consent laws aren't absolutely perfect and no two countries draw the lines in the same places, but they do the best they can.” ----- So, if a country/society define no legal age limits on consent, having relations with a 6 year old is acceptable/moral?

“The 20 year old man goes to jail. Quite rightly.” ---- What about in countries that don’t have any limits on age of consent? Is that 20 year old man having relations with a 6 year old girl moral or immoral?

TSawesome: That’s the kind of “gay stuff” that I usually do... Do I really need to “spell it out for you”?

Heteros are all about sex. You know, that’s how we define people -- by what we imagine they *might* so in the privacy of their own homes.

TheThirdHelix: I don’t know about the people you talk to, but I’ve never met any Christians who are particularly eager to discuss homosexuality, homosexual sex acts or anything related. The only reason any of us talk about this at all is because we’re constantly bombarded with it and demanded to explain ourselves for our refusal to change our religion to be more accommodating of it.

Most of us would rather talk about almost anything else, but when we’re met with lies and propaganda about what the Bible supposedly does or does not condone, we’re forced to clarify, which entails explaining precisely what the Bible condemns, which entails naming the specific sin.

Then, when we do, people like you have the audacity to accuse us of being “obsessed” or “preoccupied” with the subject, when no -- it’s not us. It’s you.

TSawesome: Not from our perspective -- the ones “bombarding” and obsessing over our lives are the fear-mongering Fundamentalists. Tell *them* to knock it off.

TheThirdHelix: How are fundamentalists interfering with you at all, much less “obsessing” over your life?

TSawesome: Let’s see... Passing legislation against LGBT in states such as NC, MS and TX, wanting to overturn marriage equality and obsessing by spending their energy arguing about bathrooms for my transgender friends.

All this things are obsessions generated by a fearful group of politicians and pastors afraid of losing power and influence to “others”.

It’s sad, really, that those people confuse holiness with persecution of some of the smallest and most vulnerable minorities in society.

TheThirdHelix: First of all, it’s everybody’s business if we’re talking about giving grown men legally-mandated access to little girls’ restrooms. I really couldn’t give two craps about any of your sanctimonious indignation over our refusal to expose little girls to predators in order to enable people with a delusion. So get over it. Nobody’s buying it. That you’re attributing it to “fearful politicians” and “pastors afraid of losing power” without any regard for the other side of the argument tells me you are totally oblivious to any reality outside of your own precious echo chamber of identity politics and victimhood mongering.

Second, the government historically recognizes marriage because there is a specific public benefit to doing so. It is not because it’s the proper role of government to endorse our romantic choices or to validate our sexual preferences. The government is in the marriage game because they know men and women are likely to have sex, sex makes babies, babies thrive with two parents who can divide up and cooperate in nurturing and material support duties, and when they don’t have that, they’re at a disadvantage later in life -- people who come into the world as bastards in the literal sense tend to grow up into bastards in the pejorative sense. High out-of-wedlock birthrates always lead to increased poverty and crime, which strains social services and public school systems, leading to societal economic hardship, so it’s in the public interest for the government to incentivize marriage with tax benefits.

But gay “sex” doesn’t make babies. There is no public benefit whatsoever to incentivizing gay “marriage.”

And, if it were really about “equality,” rather than gay supremacy, the LGBT lobby would have jumped at the compromise offered years ago in the form of civil unions, which would have bestowed all of the same legal benefits and protections as marriage, without calling it “marriage.” But, the LGBT lobby, being typical Leftists, thinks the federal government can bestow moral and spiritual legitimacy, and it wanted to use the government as a cudgel against anyone who dares oppose their dogma. And, it’s succeeding.

So stop with the persecution complex. You got your way.

I realize victimhood has been a staggeringly effective political weapon for the past 30 years and you don’t want to stop using it, so you’re still playing the persecution card whenever you possibly can, but you’re in danger of overplaying your hand. When athletes are publicly hailed as “heroes” for announcing their gayness and every TV show has one or two gay subplots, giving gays representation in media vastly out of proportion with your actual numbers, and a nearly 70-year-old man wins a “woman of the year” award just for putting on a skirt, AND, on TOP of all that, Christians are losing our businesses and livelihoods because we don’t want to participate in your subversion of western civilization ... it’s pretty absurd for you to still be playing up the “oppressed and persecuted minority” farce. It’s played out. You should quit while you’re ahead.