Wow. Would that be softening your stance or widening it? (You ate some of that "gay cake" last night, didn't you?)
So "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!", isn't bullying. All you 7-12 year olds on long car trips out there, go right ahead. Your dad just doesn't understand your deep convictions.
Actually, not even that much is true. Biblical scholars, both Christian and Jewish Rabbis who "conservative" were DEEPLY respected noted in their commentary literally hundreds of years ago (before modern "culture war" bullshit) that the passage in question was a ceremonial regulation and had specifically to do with the garments of warfare. I've got an essay on it that I copied and saved for reference (the original purpose of the essay was to debunk the Pentecostal doctrine concerning women wearing pants so it was not created to address "crossdressers" at all, let alone trans people. The Bible quite literally says NOTHING negative about trans people (and arguably Christ says "accept them") but folks like TLS don't actually follow Jesus, they follow man-made tradition like the Pharisees.
Very true, but I just like dropping scriptures when people claim to speak with any kind of authority about their religion (mostly when trying to hurt someone else) say something isn't so even when I know it is in there.
The thing about the Bible, and all conparable holy scriptures, people tend to find what they go looking for. So if they want to find justification for their deep-seated hatreds and bigotries, they will succeed. Fortunately the same is true for people looking for reasons to be tolerant and compassionate.
that's true, but it also goes to the fundamental assumptions of interpretation. There is overt eisegesis - deliberately seeking to read into it the thing you want to be there...and then there is simply poorly done exegesis in which you d have a sincere desire to objectively understand it but you begin with a flawed process which leads you, unintentionally, to the destination you're pleased to arrive at.
Completely accurate. That's why I prefer to follow my own internal compass, which doesn't seek justification for anything.