Human sexuality is more complicated than many people wish to acknowledge. The kind of person we are attracted to can change over the years. Men can be interested in women and then men and then back to women again. Some people are only interested in tall companions, some want fat ones, some only want one race … there is an infinite variety of possibilities that people find attractive.
Then to complicate things even more, people do not always identify with the sex to which they were born, and even that can change over the years. Sexuality is a fluid thing with many gray areas and it cannot easily be placed into set categories and boxes. And you cannot always tell by looking at someone what those categories might be.
So when you are thinking about someone’s sexuality, there is one overriding question you should always ask:
Who cares?
As long as everything is between consenting adult humans, who cares? How does it hurt you or anyone else in the slightest? In fact, if those consenting adults are happy, why aren’t you happy for them?
So someone is still female but identifies a male and wants to use the male restroom. Who cares? Are you hurt in some way? So two people of the same sex want to express their love and get married. Who cares? Isn’t marriage a great thing that we should be encouraging? So someone is into all sorts of sexual behavior that disgusts you and makes you cringe at the thought. Who cares? No one if forcing you to get involved.
So much stress, hatred, and anxiety could be relieved if we all just remembered to ask ourselves that question.
Barack Obama may have finally earned his Nobel Peace Prize by getting many nations to join with us to get Iran to agree to an historic treaty. Under this treaty, Iran will reduce its nuclear capability and we will be able to inspect to make sure that they do. 
In exchange, we will get rid of many of the sanctions that worked to force them to the treaty table in the first place.
Seriously, how can someone be against this?
Answer: Be an Obama-hating Republican. You know these guys — Obama could come out in favor of drinking water and they’d object. (Oh, right, they did.)
In the simple world view of these people, America is the world ruler and we should always get everything we want. If we don’t get what we want, we should bomb everyone until we do. (Because that has worked so well for us in the Middle East before. That was sarcasm.)
But that’s not how the world really works and that’s not how mature adults understand relationships, where there are compromises that must be made in order to get along. Iran is a big country and we can’t just order them to do whatever we want so we have to negotiate. We will never get everything we want when we negotiate so we get as much as we can while they try to get as much as they can. That’s how it works, you see.
So we’ve gotten a pretty good deal. Not the absolute best deal but pretty much 90% of what we want.
Not good enough, say people who are willing to let poor people die in another unnecessary war. Go ahead, ask them what their alternative is. Many of them are openly suggesting we should just declare war and bomb them because, you know, they’re an evil country and they are trying to build a nuclear bomb. (As opposed to Pakistan, China, and other evil countries that already have nuclear bombs.)
I have an idea. Let’s try diplomacy first. Let’s save violence for the last resort when everything else has failed.
I am told that is what mature, intelligent people do.
A conservative who thought he was being clever recently called a bunch of bakeries owned by gays and demanded that they make him a cake saying “Gay marriage is wrong” and all said no.
Aha! Clearly there is a double standard here.
Well, no, there isn’t. A bakery has the right to say they won’t make a cake that says “gay marriage is wrong” or “gay marriage is right” or “support Barack Obama” or “Vote Republican.”
If a bakery gladly makes penis-shaped cakes for heterosexual parties but refuses to make one for a homosexual party, then I think that is wrong. Clearly, they do not object to what they are making at that point, just who they are selling to. And that’s the problem. It’s the exact same product!
If you offer a product to the world, you should not be allowed to discriminate. You can’t say “I will sell this wedding cake design to everyone except the Irish,” for instance. And that’s the issue — when a gay couple asks a baker to give them a cake exactly like a straight couple gets, the bakery should not be allowed to say no. (I say “should” because in most states, it is perfectly legal for individuals to discriminate against gays, even when the state can’t discriminate.)
This is different from a service. A band can certainly refuse to play at a KKK rally or even a “Ted Cruz for President” event. A caterer can say that they don’t want to cater to you. A hall can refuse to rent to a group it disagrees with. I, as a lawyer, do not have to accept every single client that comes into my office with money.
There are plenty of gray areas here, but I think this is the basic distinction that many do not understand (or agree with).
Happy Easter!
Today I’d just like to share a link with you — an article written by a preacher who understands why people are afraid of what Christians might do with certain “Religious Freedom Restoration” acts … a fear that is legitimate and based in historical fact.
“The outcry isn’t about the law,” he writes, “it’s about us. It’s a fear that we will discriminate. And it is a fear based on a history that, whether we like it or not, is ours. We have, in no shortage of ways, broken relationships with the LGBTQ community. We have expelled our sons and daughters. We have protested them. We blamed them for the ills of society like a scapegoat. And no matter what we believe about same-sex marriage, that is wrong. Because of that, restoring relationship and trust with the LGBTQ community is on us. Even if you disagree with all I said above, restoring the relationship is on us because we are called as followers of Jesus to be ministers of reconciliation.”
He later concludes: “”You see, the question now being asked of Christians is, “Will you treat us as human beings?” That’s what behind wanting a cake for a same-sex wedding. Or photographs. It isn’t shoving a lifestyle down people’s throats. It’s simply a desire to be seen as human. To be treated as human. To enjoy life as we all want to enjoy life.”
This. This is what Jesus was talking about — not the hatred, the anger, the judgment.
Unfortunately, too many Christians are instead hypocrites, like the fictional “Mrs. Betty Bowers” here.
One of the reasons we can’t have nice things these days is because too many people refuse to see gray areas. You either agree with them or you’re the enemy. Moderation and compromise are not virtues to these people.
There are many people who disagree with gay marriage and gay rights who are decent, honest, and well-meaning people. They are not evil. 
They are just ignorant — ignorant of the harm they are causing, ignorant of what it means to be gay or lesbian. They have been misled by their religion and their leaders. I suspect that these people, like many, just haven’t yet realized that society has changed; that their views are not acceptable; that they need to re-examine what their religion is telling them. This does not come easy.
But some on the left want to demonize all of them in the same way some on the right try to demonize anyone who disagrees with their views.
I prefer to change people’s minds rather than berate them and make them into terrible enemies.
Some people, like many Tea Party leaders and Fox News commentators, are beyond hope. They are the cause of the problem, because they are the “no gray areas/refuse to compromise” variety. They deserve our scorn, especially those that should know better. They are the root of the problem.
There are many well-meaning people (including pizza parlor owners) who sincerely think they are doing the right thing by holding these prejudices. They’re wrong, of course. But harassing them, insulting them, and committing crimes against them won’t convince them.
