They're afraid... of having consequences... to shitty behaviour...? Oh... nnnooooo...
They deserve to have their 'rights' taken away if they are using it for oppression to begin with. If their system is causing them harm, or making them cause harm, they should question it instead of push back against the... oh no... consequences..... of their own actions..........
'Religious freedoms' my butt. Harmful traditions should die. Law should be able to make sure of it and adjust to the needs of man; strict religious scripture cannot. These are outdated laws that do not serve our time (if they even were a thing to begin with. AFAIK nowhere in the bible explicitly mentions being against queerness). Real or not, there is nothing to suppress if it's all on the straight and narrow.
Oh I have often had strong debates with conservative christians on why they're wrong on this. Honest debaters had to reach a point to agree to disagree, they wouldn't take my stance but they could no longer really argue against me either... XD
I think it is wrong to suggest the Bible itself has hate speech in it. The Bible is a book, it has stories, and they are all too often removed from context and GIVEN a hateful meaning. At the same time it is not all odd compared to something like To Kill a Mockingbird, which was banned from many libraries for depicting the awfulness of racism. We ban the most ridiculous things at times in my mind.
I do not agree with it, but if you find it to be a sin well it is between you and God. But you should not derive your idea of sin onto others. The only for sure things we have are God's ten commandments. And nowhere in the ten commandments does it say "thou shall not be queer with rainbows."
I could make a off thread in spirituality about a Christian study of the LGBT+ issue. I realize some people will strongly disagree with my studying but. I prefer to spiritually converse with God and I asked Him if it was really wrong and He never suggested it to me. And I've found more thing suggesting otherwise and that these laws were misinterpreted to be about actually being gay. Most of them are not about being gay, and in hindsight, many of the times "homosexuality" is condemned in the Bible there is actually implied other social negatives involved (lying with ones own father, rape, etc.) So it is NOT so black and white. It is as you said, there are not explicit clear sayings of queerness being the exact issue.
But yeah. Also keep in mind the old testament, where these instances occur, the Jews had many strict and odd laws about sexual relations (if you brought any other person into your wife's bed, not just a man, you would be condemned) so. As said, these laws do not really apply to us much anymore.
