In the Ugandan situation, it is Christians who are doing the persecuting. This is where we have a special responsibility in my view. In general, of course, I believe that restriction on conscience is wrong and I oppose it. Where Christians are doing the restricting and abusing their power, I feel more of a responsibility to make a difference.

Finding more exceptions or raising issues of perceived inconsistency doesn’t change what is happening in the topic of this post. The general issue here is that some churches are reaching out to GLB and HIV communities here but supporting an opposing message and approach elsewhere. I agree with Andrew Marin that such a position is a non-starter and should be opposed.

So, I am wondering: under what kinds of circumstances it is appropriate to pressure individuals, organizations or churches to “speak up” — if not this one, what sort of situation might warrrant it?

I used a colloquialism because I’d already said that I see no point in engaging in this conversation further. I did and I do object to your continued attempts to judge me and characterize me and don’t really feel much like giving you the time of day let alone answer to your attempts at judgement and doubting my words.

BTW: How you doing with pressuring people to speak up and campaign against the Afhanistan ‘Kill The Christians’ bill?

I don’t expect everyone to speak out on issues where they have no connection.

No connection? I thought the one thing that the majority of us had in common was that we were Christians…making those people our brothers and sisters in Christ. Silly me to think of that as a ‘connection’. Christians, and not just those who had some previous connection to Uganda, were urged to join the campaign against the anti-homosexuality bill based on the ‘family of man’ connection…or did I read wrong the persuasions that were employed. And when some objected that they had other involvements, the reply was ‘but this is death we’re talking about’.

BTW: How you doing with pressuring people to speak up and campaign against the Afhanistan ‘Kill The Christians’ bill?

I don’t expect everyone to speak out on issues where they have no connection. I received this criticism as well – why don’t you work as hard as against _______ (fill in the blank with an evil)? The answer for me is that I can’t work as hard on other evils or else I wouldn’t be working hard on anything. I know this issue well, started on it and don’t like to quit something. In other less public ways, I am involved in righting other wrongs and I suspect Timothy is as well. One does not need to be equally vocal about all manifestations of evil in order to speak out on one of them.

The point as I read Timothy’s post was that perception helps drive action and response. This makes sense to me and is a way to understand those who are not reacting in the same way to the same set of circumstances.