Mmm. Interesting. You point out - accurately - that in fact I am not a "traditionalist" at all. My views have strayed from the mainline Christian theology upon which the western world was founded. I respect Christianity tremendously, and I deeply appreciate its role as the backbone upon which the majority of what we consider "western values" rests, but sadly, I find the entirety of the Bible as written unconvincing. Too much focus on setting one group against another (initially the Jews as the Chosen People, and then those who accept Jesus as the Christ as superior to those who don't). Whenever I read a document that limits "good" to one set of beliefs over another, the thought always comes to my mind, "But God created the other group too."

So as long as their behavior doesn't fly in the face of reality or create overt harm, I believe any group can live among us, getting along. Homosexuality, when practiced among adults as a personal preference and neither encouraged nor discouraged, seems to cause little harm in society. In this sense, the Hell you describe I don't believe in any more than I believe the superiority of the "anti-Heterornormative etc." that has set themselves up in opposition.

I have trouble with trans for the reasons I have already stated. First, it does fly in the face of evident reality - i.e. men are men, women are women, men are not women, and women are not men. Surgical and chemical faking it is a piss-poor alternative. And second, given the differences in mental health outcomes I refer to in my original comment at the top of this thread, transgender confusion does create overt harm. Confusing people by setting their perception of themselves and their world in opposition to objectively observed sex is inherently weaker than maintaining a simple self-consistent pairing of the two.

You're right. I'm not a traditionalist. But I am in favor of keeping things simple. I do believe in God, though not the Bible. I believe the world as created (which so far as I can see has always included homosexuality) is the work of God and is in fact God itself. God created all this, and it is beautiful when we accept God's creation in its entirety, rather than separating parts of it that we like from parts we don't. Transexuals are not accepting this creation. They believe that men and women as created are optional, and particularly importantly, they believe that sometimes they were created wrong, needing to change this to "correct" things. This is a tragic degradation of the wonderful gift we are given of physical vessels in which to witness and interact with God's creation.

Thanks for clarifying.