A couple days ago, I saw this intellectually-dishonest request for a TRUE DIALOGUE between Christians and non-Christians and have been furious about it ever since.

Dialogue? To what purpose? As if Christians don't already shove their privilege in the faces of the whole rest of the world. As if non-believers already don't know, to the atomic level, what it's like to be a persecuted, poor-widdle-me buddy-Jesus Christian in a world that is rapidly figuring out that that entire religion is worthless--because they make sure to tell us their warped point of view constantly on our Facebook feeds, on our Livejournals and Tumblrs, on our newspaper pages, on our Fox news segments. As if we were not under assault by a group of loudmouthed bigots who would just love to deny some 10% of our entire population (gays) basic human and civil rights, who would like to see some 10-20% of the entire population (non-believers) shuttled out of the United States, and who do everything they can to convert our schools into missionary camps and our government into a pastoral council.

Why would I want to have a "dialogue" with a religion that says I'm a second citizen, that refuses to allow me full rights compared to men, that refuses to allow me to make my own decisions about a major function of my own body? Why would I want a "dialogue" with a religion that produces that many crackpots and bigots, a religion whose legacy is dishonesty, fraud, child abuse, misogyny, brutality, and dominionism? How do you even trust them to actually listen to anything anybody else has to say, much less honorably act on what they learn?

You don't "dialogue" with dishonest people like that. You just want them to stay far, far away. You want them to keep their intolerance to themselves. You want them to oppress their own women and leave the rest of the women alone. You want them to abuse and indoctrinate their own kids into lockstep and leave others' kids alone. You want them to keep their bigotry and conspiracy theories to themselves and out of schools and government. You want them to show a little goddamned respect for the beliefs of the rest of us for a change.

A dialogue implies that both people will be talking. I don't want a dialogue with Christians. They've said enough. I just want them to stay far, far away from me. If anything, what they need to be doing is SHUTTING THE FUCK UP and letting someone else talk for a change. It's refreshing to see them going the appeasement route; it almost seems like a stage of grief, doesn't it? That said, it's not enough. If they want people like me to see them as anything but a threat, they need to realize that it's a bit late for "dialogue."

But if they actually let us talk, we might demand rights and the complete removal of unwarranted Christian privilege from society, and oh lawdie, where might that lead?