For some reason that's meant to put an end to it. You're meant to say "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. Carry on!"
But that's nonsense.
Where it comes up a lot is on the subject of homosexuality. A lot of Christians believe that the Bible teaches that gay love is wrong. Most will say that it's the physical act, not the sexual orientation that's a sin, but either way it's besides the point. Christians will say that homosexuality is a sin and those that hear it will insist they stop shoving their 2,000 year old beliefs down their throat.
I'll just interject here and state for the record that I personally don't think that the Bible teaches against homosexuality. I'm pretty certain that those passages refer to paedophilia and/or keeping slaves for sex. They're specific things that involve same gender sex, but don't mean the entire scope of what homosexuality is. Like how banning tutti fruiti wouldn't be the same as banning all ice cream. (Had to pick the campest sounding example didn't I? Oh boy...)
Anyway. Let's just pretend it does mean homosexuality as most people understand it. Christians have their law that teaches that this practice is plain wrong and unnatural. They believe that homosexuality is harmful to society. They believe that people who are homosexual run the risk of an eternity in hell. They want to save those people and also stop other people picking up the gay habit. (I'm describing what some other people think, not what I think.)
So what they do is tell people that they're doing a bad thing and should stop.
It's really easy to see why this is perfectly reasonable. How about we swap out the word 'homosexuality' for 'murder'?
Christians have their law that teaches that murder is plain wrong and unnatural. They believe that murder is harmful to society. They believe that people who commit murder run the risk of an eternity in hell. They want to save those people and also stop other people picking up the murdering habit.
So what they do is tell people that they're doing a bad thing and should stop.
See how that works?
Yeah, if you're not Christian you might not want to follow Christian laws, but what if you lived in a country where murder was legal for some reason? Would you be fine with that or would you like the law changed? Political protest has always been about changing laws to suit the people who live under them. Without changing laws we wouldn't have equality for women or black people, which are undoubtedly good things.
Christians led the way for female and racial equality and no one would fault them for it now. This time around what they're fighting for is unpopular, but it comes from the same heart.
The difference is that Christians believe that their law is divine. It's the true law that would unite all mankind. If you don't have that absolute universal law, then whatever it is that you want to make into a law is just your opinion. In that case you'd have to find several million other people with the same opinion and -that's right- force other people to agree with you.
