LGBT issues thread (was Supreme Court to hear same-sex marriage cases)

[LawBeefaroni]

The nurse can't issue a restraining order.

She could have confirmed that the guy had power of attorney. Instead she sat back and let security cuff him and take him away.

He said the nurse refused to confirm that the couple shared power of attorney and made medical decision for each other.

“She didn’t even bother to look it up, to check in to it,” the Lee’s Summit resident recalled.

It was the family member's request for him to leave and the nurse's refusal to help him that led to his arrest which led to the restraining order.

[Enough]

And yet another example of why we need same sex marriage.

Sadly marriage wouldn't help that biggoted family member or nurse.

If they had same sex marriage in their state I think it would have helped in this case. I understand power of attorney but legal spouse would seem to add to his case here.

[LawBeefaroni]

And yet another example of why we need same sex marriage.

Sadly marriage wouldn't help that biggoted family member or nurse.

If they had same sex marriage in their state I think it would have helped in this case. I understand power of attorney but legal spouse would seem to add to his case here.

I mean they would still remain biggots.

For sure he would have been more likely to be allowed to remain, at the very least when the police became involved.

[Blackhawk]

And yet another example of why we need same sex marriage.

I hate to say it, but we need more information. We're getting his side of the story and that's it. It is entirely possible that when the family member made the request that he leave, he could have started acting belligerently - in which case he could have been removed and received a restraining order on that basis. Hell, we don't even know why the family asked him to leave - we can't just assume it is because of their orientation. There could be history of abuse. Who knows.

Every group - from homosexuals to Christians - has people who, when they don't like the way they're treated will respond with claims of victimization and discrimination.

I'm not saying that is what happened here. I could be exactly how it is being reported. I'm just saying that we don't have enough information to know what actually happened or why.

[LawBeefaroni]

And yet another example of why we need same sex marriage.

I hate to say it, but we need more information. We're getting his side of the story and that's it. It is entirely possible that when the family member made the request that he leave, he could have started acting belligerently - in which case he could have been removed and received a restraining order on that basis. Hell, we don't even know why the family asked him to leave - we can't just assume it is because of their orientation. There could be history of abuse. Who knows.

Every group - from homosexuals to Christians - has people who, when they don't like the way they're treated will respond with claims of victimization and discrimination.

I'm not saying that is what happened here. I could be exactly how it is being reported. I'm just saying that we don't have enough information to know what actually happened or why.

I agree that it's only one side.

But let's say it was a heterosexual husband/wife and a family member asked them to leave. The hospital/security would almost always side with the spouse, short of them putting the patient's life in danger. Belligerent or not. It's only because this was a non-spousal (by law) situation that the family's request meant anything.

[AWS260]

A very well-written essay on how the federal non-recognition of gay marriage makes tax season an even bigger headache than usual for those couples.

Starting with fiscal year 2011, the Kafkaesque became mandatory. Married gay couples in New York now had to file as such, and in order to do so, each spouse in the couple first had to complete a federal tax return as if he were single. Next the couple completed a third federal tax return, based on the counterfactual premise that the federal government did recognize their marriage after all. Only then, using figures from the counterfactual federal "as if married" return, was the couple able to complete a state return. It was important to remember not to send the counterfactual federal return to the IRS; there seemed to be a fear that it would upset them.

[Blackhawk]

I agree that it's only one side.

But let's say it was a heterosexual husband/wife and a family member asked them to leave. The hospital/security would almost always side with the spouse, short of them putting the patient's life in danger. Belligerent or not. It's only because this was a non-spousal (by law) situation that the family's request meant anything.

Not necessarily. If a family member asked a spouse to leave and the spouse got angry and belligerent, it is entirely likely that the security staff would have the spouse leave - not because of the request, but because of their response to it. You tell the angry yelling person to get out before they disturb the recovering patients.

[LawBeefaroni]

I agree that it's only one side.

But let's say it was a heterosexual husband/wife and a family member asked them to leave. The hospital/security would almost always side with the spouse, short of them putting the patient's life in danger. Belligerent or not. It's only because this was a non-spousal (by law) situation that the family's request meant anything.

Not necessarily. If a family member asked a spouse to leave and the spouse got angry and belligerent, it is entirely likely that the security staff would have the spouse leave - not because of the request, but because of their response to it. You tell the angry yelling person to get out before they disturb the recovering patients.

I suppose details are important here. Yeah, like I said, if they become a problem for the patient or other patients it's time to go. But we don't know that's what happened. Also, if he became belligerent because security was asking him to leave at the request of a family member, again, that's something that would never happen with a heterosexual spouse in the first place.

[Blackhawk]

Oh, I don't disagree at all that same sex spouses face regular discrimination and that it is entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that it happened here. I'm just saying that without knowing for sure, I can't responsibly judge the hospital, the family members or the spouse. It is a possible example of why the marriage debate is so important, not a black and white one - at least not until someone releases some records.

[Pyperkub]

I agree that it's only one side.

But let's say it was a heterosexual husband/wife and a family member asked them to leave. The hospital/security would almost always side with the spouse, short of them putting the patient's life in danger. Belligerent or not. It's only because this was a non-spousal (by law) situation that the family's request meant anything.

Not necessarily. If a family member asked a spouse to leave and the spouse got angry and belligerent, it is entirely likely that the security staff would have the spouse leave - not because of the request, but because of their response to it. You tell the angry yelling person to get out before they disturb the recovering patients.

I suppose details are important here. Yeah, like I said, if they become a problem for the patient or other patients it's time to go. But we don't know that's what happened. Also, if he became belligerent because security was asking him to leave at the request of a family member, again, that's something that would never happen with a heterosexual spouse in the first place.

This definitely appears to be the Family not respecting the Patient's wishes, and the Hospital not respecting a Power of Attorney :

Allen has specifically excluded his family from having any say over his medical decisions because they have not been understanding of the impact of his depression.
Not only have Roger and Allen granted each other power of attorney, but they are known throughout the hospital as a proud gay couple because they are regularly there for Allen’s treatments.
Allen’s family has not been supportive of his relationship with Roger...

...when they returned home from a few errands, Allen’s brother Lee and sister Pat were waiting at the door with paramedics and police.
Due to Allen’s sluggish state, the police determined he was a “danger to himself” and decided to take him to the hospital against his will. Rather than taking him to St. Luke’s Hospital in Lee’s Summit, the local hospital where his regular doctors are, they took him to the Research Medical Center in Kansas City, which he only goes to for his ECT. They ignored Amanda’s attempts to explain Allen’s medical needs and procedures...

...
Lee asserted that he was not going to allow Roger to make decisions for Allen and that he would instead. This enraged Roger, who replied, “No you won’t! This is my husband. I know what he wants and needs. You are never around. You need to leave.”
The nurse informed Roger that because of his agitated state, he needed to leave. When he explained that he intended to stay with his husband, she replied, “I know who you two are. You need to leave.” Refusing to acknowledge their legal relationship, she called the police to have Roger forcibly removed.
Allen, who was in and out of consciousness, objected as he was able, saying, “I want him here.”
A follow-up story from Fox 4 suggests that Roger and Lee were having a loud fight, but doesn’t otherwise contradict this account.

The Hospital/Police should not have ignored the Medical Power of Attorney, nor (apparently) the Patient's stated wishes. IMHO.

[Enough]

And yet more background on the hospital case here.

[Blackhawk]

And yet more background on the hospital case here.

Good to see more information, but reading it gave me a very different conclusion than what the author came to.

Brother and husband both arrive at the patient's side. Brother insists the husband will stay out of the picture. Husband starts shouting in the middle of a hospital, and the hospital asks him to leave for shouting. He refuses to leave, so the hospital calls in the authorities to enforce it.

At this point, I don't see anything that would have been done differently if it were a straight couple.

If I went in to see my wife at the hospital, and my father-in-law was there telling me to keep out of it, and I started shouting, the hospital would ask me to leave, too. If I refused, they'd call the police.

Once he starts creating a loud disturbance, it isn't ignoring his rights to tell him to get out, it is standard practice. Go start shouting in a hospital. See what happens. I didn't read a single thing in that report that made me think that the hospital had specifically denied him rights because he was gay.

The author of that piece was seriously biased, by the way. He'd decided who was in the right before even writing the piece. The whole section on 'The Violent Arrest' was ignorant. Yes, they took him down, but not until he resisted, holding on to a railing after they'd ordered him to leave. Yes, they assumed he had pathogens and wore gloves. Any cop with a brain will do that on any subject who is bleeding, gay, straight or Catholic nun. It is a basic procedure, as is not putting contaminated handcuffs back into service.

[AWS260]

At this point, I don't see anything that would have been done differently if it were a straight couple.

If I went in to see my wife at the hospital, and my father-in-law was there telling me to keep out of it, and I started shouting, the hospital would ask me to leave, too. If I refused, they'd call the police.

I don't think that's true. Assuming your wife was incapacitated, and your shouts formed actual words explaining the situation, they would ask your father-in-law to leave.

[Combustible Lemur]

At this point, I don't see anything that would have been done differently if it were a straight couple.

If I went in to see my wife at the hospital, and my father-in-law was there telling me to keep out of it, and I started shouting, the hospital would ask me to leave, too. If I refused, they'd call the police.

I don't think that's true. Assuming your wife was incapacitated, and your shouts formed actual words explaining the situation, they would ask your father-in-law to leave.

Agreed.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2

[Blackhawk]

I disagree. I've been involved in a lot of domestic disturbance calls, and they're way too dynamic to have it be black and white. If they asked him to calm down and he stayed loud, the safety of the other patients becomes the priority, and the person making the noise goes. Nurses aren't cops. It isn't their job to defuse a dangerous situation and figure out who was right and who was wrong.

[Holman]

But the issue isn't that a disruptive guy was expelled. That happens to straights and gays and anyone.

The issue is that the family was trying to separate him from his ill partner. If I were at the hospital with my wife in a terrible state, and her father arrived and decided that I had to leave, would anyone take him seriously? Would even the bitterest in-laws see it as a feasible thing to try?

I'm not excusing disruptive behavior, but this isn't a story about that. It's about second-class citizenship.

[Blackhawk]

The issue is that the family was trying to separate him from his ill partner. If I were at the hospital with my wife in a terrible state, and her father arrived and decided that I had to leave, would anyone take him seriously?

If the nurse walked in and you were shouting, and asked you to calm down and you kept shouting, then you'd be asked to leave. They might not take him seriously at all, but they wouldn't allow you to disturb resting patients, either.

[Holman]

The issue is that the family was trying to separate him from his ill partner. If I were at the hospital with my wife in a terrible state, and her father arrived and decided that I had to leave, would anyone take him seriously?

If the nurse walked in and you were shouting, and asked you to calm down and you kept shouting, then you'd be asked to leave. They might not take him seriously at all, but they wouldn't allow you to disturb resting patients, either.

But in this scenario I'm shouting because my wife's family is insisting that I have no right to be there, something that would never happen because I'm straight.

[Blackhawk]

But in this scenario I'm shouting because my wife's family is insisting that I have no right to be there, something that would never happen because I'm straight.

Nonsense. First of all, nobody there said anything about his right to be there. His brother said, rather, that he wouldn't allow him to be directly involved, regardless of whether he had the right. I've seen it happen myself. Hell, I can absolutely see my first wife's father doing exactly that.

/edit - I will qualify that with the fact that I believe that his brother was, indeed, motivated by the fact that he was gay. I just don't see where the hospital violated his rights by asking a disruptive person to leave and not come back, or where better marriage laws would have made any difference here.

[Holman]

But in this scenario I'm shouting because my wife's family is insisting that I have no right to be there, something that would never happen because I'm straight.

Nonsense. First of all, nobody there said anything about his right to be there. His brother said, rather, that he wouldn't allow him to be directly involved, regardless of whether he had the right. I've seen it happen myself. Hell, I can absolutely see my first wife's father doing exactly that.

Oops--I did get that wrong. It was about about making decisions, not presence.

/edit - I will qualify that with the fact that I believe that his brother was, indeed, motivated by the fact that he was gay. I just don't see where the hospital violated his rights by asking a disruptive person to leave and not come back, or where better marriage laws would have made any difference here.

This episode is complicated because there are two themes going on. One is that the dude's disruptive behavior got him (rightly) expelled. But the other is that there really could have been no feasible challenge to his right to make decisions had he been straight and married. Yes, the crazy relatives might have made the play, but the hospital would have lined up behind the rightful spouse in a second, and the crazies would have either backed down or doubled down (and then been expelled themselves).

[Blackhawk]

Right, but I'm not convinced there ever was a challenge to begin with. The issue was never brought to the hospital staff. The way the reports read, his attitude and behavior mandated action before the issue of his spousal rights was ever questioned.

[Pyperkub]

Right, but I'm not convinced there ever was a challenge to begin with. The issue was never brought to the hospital staff. The way the reports read, his attitude and behavior mandated action before the issue of his spousal rights was ever questioned.

Actually, the quote was that the hospital refused to even look at the durable power of attorney. Perhaps because the family that forcibly brought him there had told them about "him".

Yes, that same family who were ignoring the patient's wishes, etc.

tapatalkin'

[Blackhawk]

At what point?

[Combustible Lemur]

At what point?

Rereading, the point at which allen returns home to excised in laws and police to find and institutions and was taken to ambivalent specialty hospital rather than first to a familiar and amenable hospital after amenable ?daughter? was ignored. There still seems to be missing information, but it sounds like concerned but biased family made a power play when they were made aware that Allen was deteriorating.

So, from the moment Roger was aware of anything, he was walking into hostile territory.




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[Blackhawk]

At what point?

Rereading, the point at which allen returns home to excised in laws and police to find and institutions and was taken to ambivalent specialty hospital rather than first to a familiar and amenable hospital after amenable ?daughter? was ignored. There still seems to be missing information, but it sounds like concerned but biased family made a power play when they were made aware that Allen was deteriorating.

So, from the moment Roger was aware of anything, he was walking into hostile territory.

At that point, he was determined to be dysfunctional enough that he was a 'danger to himself', which means that the police and paramedics were in charge of determining what happened to him, unless somebody else present had that authority. The power of attorney wouldn't really apply, as the person who had been given that authority was absent. The husband wasn't even notified until the guy was already at the hospital.

It absolutely does sound like a power play, and possibly motivated by the couple's sexual preferences, but I still don't see it as something that would have been handled differently had, say, a straight man been reported by his sister to be of diminished capacity, and the authorities found evidence supporting that.

[Blackhawk]

Honestly, it looks like the guy's family hated the husband, waited until a time that they knew the husband would be at work (so he couldn't exercise his rights to begin with), and the guy would be weak from treatment, then called the police. The family did an end-run around the husband. The police/paramedics/hospital didn't ignore his rights, the family simply ensured he didn't get the chance to assert them.

By the time the husband got involved, he'd realized what had happened, got to the hospital pissed off (as this was likely part of a longer chain of events), and when the brother said, "We're taking over", the husband snapped. It is entirely likely that, had he stayed calm and explained things, the hospital would have backed him against the family. He didn't stay calm. He became a big problem for the hospital staff, and the safety of the staff and other patients became the priority, not the power of attorney (and rightfully so.)

Everything I've read suggests that the family pissed off the husband, and he lost control.

When everything was said and done, someone realized that he was gay and it became a cry of discrimination, rather than a case of misbehavior.

There are a lot of reasons why same sex marriage needs to be legalized. There are many, many cases of straight up discrimination that should be pissing people off (and do piss me off.) The facts just don't seem to support that in this instance.

[Chrisoc13]

So long as the Republican Party is rife with Evangelical Christians in the South and Mormon church members in the West, its base will be solidly anti-gay.

Hey Fireball thought you might find this article interesting on the topic of the changes within the Mormon church since Prop 8. It isn't the best piece of journalism but it did manage to share some of the shift in culture I have seen the last few years.

[Fireball]

So long as the Republican Party is rife with Evangelical Christians in the South and Mormon church members in the West, its base will be solidly anti-gay.

Hey Fireball thought you might find this article interesting on the topic of the changes within the Mormon church since Prop 8. It isn't the best piece of journalism but it did manage to share some of the shift in culture I have seen the last few years.

This is the only thing I ever need to read about that organization, from the article:

The church's anti-gay positions and lobbying on gay marriage have always been divisive. In 2000, during the fight over the Knight Initiative, a young gay Mormon named Stuart Matis killed himself on the steps of a Mormon ward in Los Altos, California. In a letter to his cousin shortly before his suicide, he despaired over the impact of the church's political activities on Mormon families: "On the night of March 7th, many California couples will retire to their beds thrilled that they helped pass the Knight Initiative. What they don't realize is that in the next room, their son or daughter is lying in bed crying and could very well one day be the victim of society's homophobia. The Knight Initiative will certainly save no family. It is codified hatred. It is anti-family, anti-love and it is wrong."

But Matis' death didn't slow the church's efforts to beat back same-sex marriage initiatives.

[Chrisoc13]

So long as the Republican Party is rife with Evangelical Christians in the South and Mormon church members in the West, its base will be solidly anti-gay.

Hey Fireball thought you might find this article interesting on the topic of the changes within the Mormon church since Prop 8. It isn't the best piece of journalism but it did manage to share some of the shift in culture I have seen the last few years.

This is the only thing I ever need to read about that organization, from the article:

The church's anti-gay positions and lobbying on gay marriage have always been divisive. In 2000, during the fight over the Knight Initiative, a young gay Mormon named Stuart Matis killed himself on the steps of a Mormon ward in Los Altos, California. In a letter to his cousin shortly before his suicide, he despaired over the impact of the church's political activities on Mormon families: "On the night of March 7th, many California couples will retire to their beds thrilled that they helped pass the Knight Initiative. What they don't realize is that in the next room, their son or daughter is lying in bed crying and could very well one day be the victim of society's homophobia. The Knight Initiative will certainly save no family. It is codified hatred. It is anti-family, anti-love and it is wrong."

But Matis' death didn't slow the church's efforts to beat back same-sex marriage initiatives.

A tragedy to be certain, no understating that.

I understand the great importance of this issue to you but having the mindset you displayed will do more harm than good to your cause. If that is all you ever need to know on the matter then you are unwilling to come to the table to try and foster goodwill and understanding.

If that is all you need to know then it is a shame you didn't see:

In response to the anger within Mormon ranks over Prop. 8, the president of the Oakland, California, stake (a stake is akin to a Catholic diocese) began organizing gatherings of gay and straight members to try to bridge the differences. In September 2010, the disgruntled church members received a private audience with one of the church's top officials, Marlin Jensen, who serves as the LDS's historian. The church members tearfully told Jensen their stories—of being shunned by their families, and the homophobia generated by the Prop. 8 campaign. "We explained that [the church had] pitted father against son, mother against daughter, exactly the opposite of what we stand for," says Mayne, who attended the meeting.

After listening to them talk, Jensen did something almost unheard of in a church whose strict authoritarian hierarchy is unaccustomed to being challenged from below: He apologized "for the pain that Prop. 8 caused [us]," Mayne recalls, choking up at the memory. It was, he says, a "very meaningful event."

The church has worked with the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University to craft an educational booklet aimed specifically at helping Mormons parent their gay kids, to keep them safe at home and to prevent suicide. It's a remarkably humane document instructing church members on how to embrace their gay kids even when they're uncomfortable with their purple hair and transgendered friends. The pamphlet is now being used in lots of Mormon wards. Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, where the church is headquartered, the church has teamed up with the LGBT community to open a shelter for young homeless people there, about 40 percent of whom are known to be LGBT.

These are concrete differences within the LDS church. not to mention the decision to not fight gay marriage in 4 states following California:

The LGBT community's best evidence of change within the church is that last year, in the only four states ever to pass marriage equality laws, the church "did not provide one dime or one volunteer," Dabakis says. He adds that in Maryland, when one local Mormon leader tried to organize to oppose a pro-marriage-equality initiative, the church shut her down.

I posted this article in an attempt to continue a conversation with you about the changing views within the LDS church on the topic of gay marriage (a topic you began when I suggested it was only a matter of time before Republicans support gay marriage) but you have shown yourself unwilling to even have a reasonable conversation on the matter or an acceptance that there may be a shifting tide. If I didn't know better I would start thinking you want an enemy in the LDS church and the idea of the LDS church backing away from the fight really bothers you. Rather than seeing the good in the recent changes you appear entirely fixated on the past. Little good can come from that.

I understand it is an important topic to you, but realize that while your sexual orientation may be a central part of who you are the religious identities of others are a central part of who they are. In many cases it may define who they are. This is a sensitive issue on both sides. Goodwill and understanding will need to be offered on both sides for tolerance to prevail.

[Fireball]

I read the entire article. I really see nothing therein of interest.

The LDS continues to support Proposition 8. Local LDS members were involved with organizing and funding the anti-marriage efforts in several states last year. Mormons continue to be disproportionately involved with the leadership and funding of the evil "National Organization for Marriage." For decades, the LDS drove its members to throw their gay children out of their homes and drove countless thousands of them to suicides -- and even when those suicides came literally to its doorsteps it's leaders DIDN'T CARE. Their hands are caked with blood.

Now the public backlash is causing the LDS to soften its public position, and they're allowing some of its gay members to play along if they condemn themselves to a life of solitude and celibacy. I'm not impressed. Until the LDS apologizes for its support of Proposition 8, and all the other anti-marriage and anti-LGBT efforts that dot its history, I don't care. Until the LDS stops being the main obstacle to equal access for young men to the Boy Scouts, I don't care.

All I want is the LDS to stop trying to fuck with my life. I didn't attack it -- it attacked me. Despite that, I wouldn't support repealing its tax exempt status (which I do think its Prop 8 actions justify). I would have no interaction with the LDS on any level, and be perfectly happy about that, except for its actions which were direct attacks against me and everyone like me.

And the fact that religious beliefs are heartfelt is not an argument against moral culpability for the harm they cause. Religion, unlike race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, is an entirely chosen thing. No one is born with religious beliefs. We are indoctrinated as children, or encounter them as adults. Regardless, we have a moral responsibility to measure and weigh our beliefs, and to throw out those that are harmful to other people.

[Grundbegriff]

Religion, unlike race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, is an entirely chosen thing. No one is born with religious beliefs. We are indoctrinated as children, or encounter them as adults.

Why suppose so? Many hold that some beliefs, or predispositions toward them, are properly basic.

[YellowKing]

Regardless, we have a moral responsibility to measure and weigh our beliefs, and to throw out those that are harmful to other people.

I'd argue that people who are against gay marriage due to religious beliefs might be incapable of seeing their stance as harmful to other people. To them, homosexuals trying to get married are the ones doing the harm. I'm not saying it's right, just saying that it's unrealistic to expect them to weigh their beliefs from an objective perspective.

[Fireball]

Religion, unlike race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, is an entirely chosen thing. No one is born with religious beliefs. We are indoctrinated as children, or encounter them as adults.

Why suppose so? Many hold that some beliefs, or predispositions toward them, are properly basic.

Those people are wrong. Religion is something learned. No one is born with religious beliefs.

[Daehawk]

[Grundbegriff]

Religion, unlike race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, is an entirely chosen thing. No one is born with religious beliefs. We are indoctrinated as children, or encounter them as adults.

Why suppose so? Many hold that some beliefs, or predispositions toward them, are properly basic.

Those people are wrong. Religion is something learned. No one is born with religious beliefs.

Well! That was conveniently easy for you!

Note well, though, that being born with a belief is not the same as being born with a predisposition toward a belief-- a distinction drawn in my post and ignored in your reply.

Think of it as epigenetic.

[Fireball]

Religion, unlike race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, is an entirely chosen thing. No one is born with religious beliefs. We are indoctrinated as children, or encounter them as adults.

Why suppose so? Many hold that some beliefs, or predispositions toward them, are properly basic.

Those people are wrong. Religion is something learned. No one is born with religious beliefs.

Well! That was conveniently easy for you!

Note well, though, that being born with a belief is not the same as being born with a predisposition toward a belief-- a distinction drawn in my post and ignored in your reply.

Think of it as epigenetic.

You still choose which beliefs you adopt. If youre an adult and you haven't torn your beliefs apart, questioned them, struggled with them and reassembled them, then what reason is here for others to respect them? Beliefs passively received and blindly regurgitated are rather worthless.

[Grundbegriff]

You still choose which beliefs you adopt.

We also choose how to manage our many biologically driven impulses and predispositions, whatever they be. Hence, for example, the cultural tensions between monogamy and multiamory.

Where volition (or choice actualization in the absence of a model of cognitive-behavioral faculties) happens to be a factor, that fact alone is insufficient to establish that it the sole relevant factor. We're critters who think, feel, and choose; we're also laden or endowed with predispositions and tendencies, some from nurture and some from nature.

Crippled, then, is the model of religious belief that reduces it to overt, explicit ratiocination and choice when, like most doxastic activity, it's so much more.

[Fireball]

You still choose which beliefs you adopt.

We also choose how to manage our many biologically driven impulses and predispositions, whatever they be. Hence, for example, the cultural tensions between monogamy and multiamory.

Where volition (or choice actualization in the absence of a model of cognitive-behavioral faculties) happens to be a factor, that fact alone is insufficient to establish that it the sole relevant factor. We're critters who think, feel, and choose; we're also laden or endowed with predispositions and tendencies, some from nurture and some from nature.

Crippled, then, is the model of religious belief that reduces it to overt, explicit ratiocination and choice when, like most doxastic activity, it's so much more.

People are still responsible for the harm their beliefs cause to others, even if their upbringing and perhaps flaws in their genes make them predisposed to being spoonfed beliefs by their elders. Their inherent intellectual weaknesses do not excuse them of the responsibility of reconsidering, and casting aside, beliefs that cause harm to innocent people.

[Grundbegriff]

...the harm their beliefs cause to others....
...flaws in their genes....
...spoonfed beliefs by their elders....
...inherent intellectual weaknesses....

Heh. Truth will out, even when it comes to cryptofascist models of thoughtcrime.

[Fireball]

This isn't "thoughtcrime." Conservative religious people who attempt to impose their own warped morals on innocent young gay people cause immense, often irreparable, often fatal harm. Their culpability for harming innocent people is real. The dire consequences of their uninformed beliefs are very real.

The gay community hasn't done anything to harm religious conservatives. They, however, have waged a war of hate and malice against us, and have racked up quite a body count.