The discussion about whether Christians are 'bonkers' was and is completely irrelevant to what I was throwing the gauntlet down at. It is really is that most Christians are against LGBT rights.
Which I would be willing to concede... but that article never did make a blunt percentage count across all human Christians.
Ok, I'm going to deal with age and race together. Age and race are statements about your biology, religion is nothing like that. Religion is something you believe. If someone doesn't believe in Jesus, they are not a Christian, there are no beliefs mandated by being a certain age or a certain racial group. There are no beliefs that you could change that would change your genetics or your age.
But that is not what was put forth in the original statement. The original statement was a judgement on a sector of the population based on a statistical group of it, which was not it's entirety.
Should one make sweeping statements regarding entire groups if there are important subsets of dissension?
The difference is that Christianity is a revelatory religion, it has a book and a set of essential beliefs. If you convinced every Christian tomorrow that there was no god, then Christianity would vanish. If you convinced every 80-year old that they were in fact 20 years old, they wouldn't cease to be 80 years old.
Agreed. But the requirements to be considered christian are independent of the LGBT outlook.
So no, there's no comparing religion to race, gender or age. However there's a degree of truth in what you've said. It is worth examining why certain age groups, genders or races hold the opinions that they do when patterns emerge.
There still are comparisons that can be made. Something being a choice or a biological emergence does not remove some level of allowance for non-generalizations. Further, the argument of a "Choice" is very interesting, as we must admit the majority of people are the same religion as their parents. This has far less to do with any conscious choice of belief and more to do with societal pressures.
But to examine a trend among a group and look for socio-economic causes is far different than examining a system of beliefs like a religion.
But those same socio-economic causes and relationships also affect the same groups of people within a system of beliefs like religion. The same evaluation can be done. The same relationships can be found.