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> people they see as ultimate sinners who could soil them and send them to hell for eternity is completely disregarded and not tolerated at all.

And if that were true, this could be an actual problem (don't think "soiling" is a thing in Christianity). In any case, no one who wants to tolerate anything means that it takes precedence over everything else. Some cultures allow murdering unfaithful women. Even the most tolerant of free societies would not tolerate that, yet that doesn't make it intolerant. Society doesn't operate according to boolean logic and values have relative importance.

> The issue stems from you not being tolerant or understanding of their religious beliefs.

But I am tolerant of their expressing their beliefs. I'm all for Reddit allowing intolerance. I'm against it allowing mobs of intimidation.

> It's that arguing between right or wrong will depend entirely on beliefs.

Except I'm not arguing about right or wrong. I'm arguing about building an effective community (or a society) that can function well, given the composition of its members.

If someone feels uncomfortable in a community where threats of rape are not acceptable and would rather spend time in a community that enjoys bullying and threats, it stands to reason that they should form a separate community and not spend time with the 99.9% of people who feel different.

>For example - a Jew's right to avoid pork and shellfish is respected but the right for an evangelical Christian to avoid people they see as ultimate sinners who could soil them and send them to hell for eternity is completely disregarded and not tolerated at all.

The right for evangelican Christians to avoid people they see as sinners is respected just as much as the right for Jews to avoid pork and shellfish is; nobody forces a Jewish person to eat pork, and nobody forces evangelical Christians to interact with sinners.

The right of evangelical Christians to enforce their beliefs on others, i.e. by making it illegal for homosexuals to get married, is a very different right, and you haven't made an argument for why that right should be respected at all; should Jews be allowed to shut down a restaurant just because that restaurant happens to serve pork or shellfish?

>you haven't made an argument for why that right should be respected at all

That's because I don't think it should be. You're entirely missing the point of my argument and why arguing from morals and right/wrong is completely pointless. You're arguing about enforcing beliefs - I'm arguing about what is and isn't immoral and how people treat behaviors they deem to be moral or immoral. It's only immoral when you don't agree with it. If you thought homosexuality was a sin and marriage should be banned defending the cause is moral. Enforcing beliefs would be impossible because everyone has their own beliefs and there would be contradictions everywhere.

I'll use a different example, since people are missing my point entirely.

A despised terrorist to one group of people is a glorified hero to another. The only difference is which group you belong to.

It's all a matter of perspective and shouting down about how immoral or intolerant they are being will change nothing from their perspective because you are in the wrong. Not them.

Tolerating a homosexual in their presence goes against their beliefs. It's a sin to tolerate such a presence. You are asking them to sin and go to hell. I can easily understand why they might not so willing to sin and go to hell, no matter how politely you ask.

>Tolerating a homosexual in their presence goes against their beliefs.

But nobody has said that evangelical Christians have to tolerate the presence of homosexuals? Unless there's been a movement to ban homosexuals from doing things like being in public spaces; I'm not currently aware of any such movement, although I admit that I'm not really up on such things. If somebody doesn't want to be in the presence of a homosexual, then they can arrange their life in such a way that they never need to do that, and I don't think anybody is really going to force them to do something like travel to San Francisco to watch a pride parade.

edit: I guess I'm not sure what your argument is, because you say that you're not talking about enforcing beliefs and then you say that evangelical christians are forced to interact with homosexuals.

> But nobody has said that evangelical Christians have to tolerate the presence of homosexuals?

Laws exist saying that public businesses must serve all customers without discrimination, there has been a lot of controversy over, for example, a baker refusing to make a cake for a gay couples wedding.

This is an example where government enforced capitalism has been enshrined in law and it is a good thing. Discrimination distorts the market in horrible ways, American history has plenty of examples of stores discriminating meaning other stores pop up providing substandard non-competitive service to a population.

Sure, but that's still a choice that evangelical christians are making; they choose to run a public business, which means they have to interact with the public. If they're not comfortable doing that, then they don't have to run a public business.

> If they're not comfortable doing that, then they don't have to run a public business.

On the other hand, you're implicitly banning a certain class of people from owning a certain kind of business. I'm not sure why that's the most tolerant option.

A ban you choose to participate in (since it by definition only affects people who choose to be devout Christians to the extent that even interacting with homosexuals is forbidden, a philosophy which I'm not at all confident is in the bible, who also choose to own a business devoted to serving the public) seems more tolerant than a ban which is forced upon you (since nobody chooses their sexual orientation).

Do you disagree? I'm not arguing that it's completely tolerant, but unfortunately we have a case where one person completely refuses to tolerate the mere existence of another so I think it's clear that one hundred percent toleration is off the table. Since one person is choosing to be intolerant and the other isn't, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to place restrictions on the person making the choice; if they feel that the inconveniences are too much, they're obviously welcome to rethink their choice. You can't really ask that of a gay person.

>a baker refusing to make a cake for a gay couples wedding.

>This is an example where government enforced capitalism has been enshrined in law and it is a good thing.

No, it's a government-enforced liability, it has nothing to do with capitalism (if anything, it's borderline anti-capitalistic). The fact that the second store serving the disenfranchised is substandard or non-competitive has nothing to do with the fact that the original store would not serve some population. A third store could also service those disenfranchised by the first and unsatisfied by the second. That's capitalism. Now if there's some kind of regulation limiting the number of stores, that's anti-capitalistic government action (a government-sanctioned oligopoly of sorts).

Let's say the baker decides to close their business rather than be forced to serve some group of people. Is that baker still obligated to make that cake? Why? What if the baker moves their business to a region that allows personal biases, is the baker obligated to bake that cake?

Your example is more akin to stores requiring patrons to wear shirt and shoes to receive service. Potential customers are being discriminated against here for an arbitrary reason based on some ideal of what is considered public decency. Do you think that a Muslim store requiring female customers to wear a burqa is discriminatory, or are they practicing freedom of religion? Does the government forcing the Muslim store to allow female customers without a burqa violate the first amendment?

> there has been a lot of controversy over, for example, a baker refusing to make a cake for a gay couples wedding.

A better example is a wedding planner or a marriage counselor. At some point, the freedom of speech and freedom of association comes into play and cannot be disentangled from the services provided. Saying a marriage counselor has to help save marriages or close up shop is to ban people with certain beliefs from certain occupations.

Tolerance of everything is impossible. You have to be intolerant of certain beliefs or practices in order to tolerate others. What you choose to tolerate come down to little more then your personal beliefs. Saying something is intolerant is ultimately an empty statement.

>Speaking out against gay-marriage is [against my] beliefs

>Promoting gay marriage is intolerant [to Christian beliefs]

Allowing gays to marry - regardless if Christians have to be around these gays or not is against their beliefs. Not being respective of their beliefs is intolerant (this is a must, and intolerance is not necessarily a bad thing any more than tolerance is a good thing)

I tried to be as succinct as possible.

E:

I feel this is a necessary disclaimer after re-reading this response, lest I offend any Christians who are tolerant of homosexuals... Not all Christians...there are too many branches and sub-branches with different opinions, I use it as a blanket term for the specific (and known to exist) branches that are intolerant of homosexuals and hope it is taken as such for the sake of communication.

>but the right for an evangelical Christian to avoid people they see as ultimate sinners who could soil them and send them to hell for eternity is completely disregarded and not tolerated at all.

If there are any Christians who actually believe this, then they clearly have not read their gospels. Jesus, in word and deed, emphasized being around people who are sinners. The only people he ever pushed away were those who were abusing religion for their own gain.

And entrance to Hell is not gained by being around or talking to sinners. If this were true, Christianity would have died out because its members would not have been able to talk to anyone outside the group, and therefore would have had zero converts. The reasons for going to Hell vary based on what part of the Bible you read or what theologian you favor, but all the reasons can basically be summed up as the individual rejecting God in some way. People aren't sent to Hell just because they picked up cooties from some random sinner.

In short, your example is incredibly ridiculous and has no theological basis. Yes, some Christians separate themselves from the world. Some enjoy playing the "holier than thou" game. Even for people like that, none of them would think they were in danger of eternal damnation for spending time around a gay person.

>In short, your example is incredibly ridiculous and has no theological basis.

That's really beside the point, isn't it? If they believe something, however wrong it is in your eyes, it's still what they believe. Of course there's no reason to accommodate people whose beliefs actively affect someone else, but people have a right to refuse associations for any reason.