Dear Dr. Bock,
I'm still hoping you'll reply to my initial comment, as - I'm sure you know - it takes a lot of time and effort to present the issues in, hopefully, a concise manner. Below I hope to expand some points further.

Dear Matt Evans,

I aim to be respectful but I won't hide the fact from you that the reason I've commented here is because I feel that calling homosexuality a sin (upstream, in the Bible, on the pulpit, and on blog pages) inevitably leads (further downstream, in the schools, in the streets) to real-world psychological and physical violence against human beings who don't deserve it.

If you convince me that calling non-heterosexuality a sin (first), and then voting to preclude the "sinners" from civic marriage contracts, for example (second), does no tangible harm in terms of giving a theoretical framework for the more excessive, psychological and physical ostracizing that gays have always and perennially suffered, then I will be satisfied.

First, neither you, nor Dr. Bock have - in any way - addressed the substance or appropriateness of my "Separate But Equal" comparison. So - as I am awaiting a rebuttal - I'll keep expanding on it:

Civil rights was not about whether science could explain (prove) racial difference, rather, it took for granted racial difference (for whatever the reasons that said difference may or may not exist), and created actual laws to change people's actions and attitudes about how they treat each other.

Dr. Bock says this for gays - "A question to ask is whether a given behavior is innate or can be changed." The implication appearing to be: if non-heterosexuality were innate, like race, the circumstances would be mitigated, or perhaps even ok.

My view is that the concept of the "innate", in homosexuality - as in race - is utterly offensive. Homosexuality is the same non-issue as race: consider yourself telling someone that if they could "choose" to not be black, then they would be morally remiss not to do so. This is - precisely and to the letter - what Dr. Bock and (possibly) yourself are suggesting for non-heterosexuals.

Elsewhere, the issue of non-heterosexuality brings up the issue of what society considers to be tolerably different. To me, you've brought up a classic retort: there are things which are intolerable, such as murder and pedophilia, and something like "do these people (gays) want to get rid of those crimes as well?"

Serious question: since when are murder and pedophilia crimes? Is this an incendiary question? I will agree it is - but can you explain to me how these crimes are not deemed to be so (serious crimes) through socially educated conventions (civil contract)? My view is that these are indeed customs, and that all customs fall along along a spectrum of obvious to much less obvious.

The question of sexual preference cannot be so obvious: you've told me, and Dr. Bock has also said, that you have (or have had) gay friends/acquaintances. Well, do you have murderer and pedophilic friends/acquaintances, as well? I doubt it, and that's because those types of crimes are not anywhere near as debatable as what you consider to be the transgression of non-heterosexuality.

You state "who is protecting those murderers and pedophiles from themselves?", which I suppose is to be expanded to "who's to protect those gays, lesbians, bisexuals from themselves?" I know your answer is God, or the Scriptures, or hopefully by Christians quoting the prohibitive passages in your texts... My feeling is that same-sex kissing (etc...) is such a lame issue to be getting on your soapbox about as to be laughable - that is if it didn't produce such amazing and horrific suffering in the people you are addressing.

I can't address many more specifics, I don't have time. But I'll give one anecdote:

Whenever I talk to friends or open-minded people in general, they always say the same thing about Christians and non-heterosexuality. They say "why can't Christians abide by their most famous maxim: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto You.?" Nevermind if the quote is neither correct, nor the most famous - I'm saying that this is what I've heard the most, by far.

So we're saying, why can't Christians understand that we are not calling, nor have we ever called, heterosexuality a Sin. Don't you agree that you would not want us to do that, so that (according to your own dictum) calling us sinners is hypocritical?

I should end there, because the whole topic truly makes me want to vomit. Not your fault, but the fault of history, and peoples, and the world. Yes I'm upset, and you should know that your concept of Sin is upsetting.

Sin - the concept of scary monsters for adults. Remember when you were frightened of the dark, and it took you so long to believe what your parents were telling you, that the monsters weren't actually there, that it was entirely your own imagination? Here you are still believing that God is a scary authoritarian, he's going to chastise you with his Scriptures. Sin, also known as a paranoia.

Hopefully, a humourous note could end this tirade well. Your Bible, to me, is like a collection of repair manuals for cars that were produced circa 70-150 AD. Great and fascinating manuals, but the problem is a great bunch of people are still trying to repair their cars with them in 2009!

It's absurd to think that God produced one manual for all of time. Nevermind that a great many people don't any more believe a Divine being, any more than the Romans believed that there was only one of them, as opposed to scores of them. And it's absurd not to see the outdated car parts in your own manual, when such parts in similar car manuals are so obvious. Yes the parallel and contradictory claims of Divine exclusivity in the Koran and Bible simply annul each other.

But again, I only say these things because you (Christians) started it. You are the ones (in this debate) who set us up (as Sinners) in order to knock us down. But take heed, you are historically in great company - many societies have done the same, and will continue to do so - mayhem is the way of the world.