Honestly, I think that Australia is doing much better than the US in terms of tolerance and acceptance. Churches in the US are more vocal than over here.
While our law is separate from the church, you would find that a lot of legal principles have biblical roots. Furthermore, our judiciary is dominated by christian judges (2008 survey, about 58% of judges are identified as christians: catholics, anglicans, and other Christians). This is unfortunate because there should be more diversity in the judiciary.
I would suggest that our law is (whether we like it or not) influenced by the Christian faith even though church and the law should be separate.
I will attempt to compare the views of fellow Christians, non christians and gay/lesbians in regards to homosexuality.
The Christian view:
1. Homosexuality is not natural, and that homosexuals choose their lifestyle. The bible condemns it.
2. I have gay friends, and I love them but I have to disagree with their lifestyle.
The Non Christian View:
1. I'm for it. They deserve to be treated equally with respect. They don't choose to be gay/lesbian.
2. I don't care as long as they don't bother me
3. I hate homosexuals. they disgust me.
The Gay lebsian view:
1. I don't choose to be attracted to men/women. How is it possible for someone to choose their attraction. You simply are attracted to certain people because your body responds that way.
2. I just want to be treated equally and with respect. Why must the church persecute me and call me an abomination when I have no choice over it?
New category: The gay lesbian christian view:
1. I'm a christian but I am still attracted to the same sex even though I have prayed to God to get rid of my homosexuality. So I am suppressing it and be hopeful and continue to pray until its gone.
2. I've chosen to live a celibate life because it is the only way I can live to honor God. I cannot get married to the opposite sex because it would be a lie to them.
3. I've chosen to get married to the opposite sex after being counselled by my pastor or priest. I am working hard to maintain this marriage. My same sex attraction is still there, and I am working hard to ignore it.
4. I'm proudly gay and christian because i know that god created me this way. People are misinformed about what the bible says about homosexuality. They jump to conclusions by reading the scriptures at a surface level.
5. I'm leaving the church because my pastor do not accept or understands me.
These are the views I've got by listening to many various people. Often, many christians don't understand gay/lesbians. Many of them are not aware that there are some church members in their church who are gay/lesbian and are suppressing their attraction. I've attended one of these churches where being gay and christian isnt even something remotely possible in their minds.
I might continue later. got to go for now.
Personally, I hate the word tolerance. At the heart of tolerance is disgust. i.e I will deal with you even though, deep down, you disgust me. So I'm not really that impressed with the legislature and populace for making great strides of tolerating us more than the US, especially when Canada, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa, the Netherlands, Iceland, France and Spain are all leaps and bounds ahead of us.
It is correct to note that our laws are influenced by the religious institution however I think the Christian identification thing is a bit out of whack. The wonder of identity politics is that you can identify with something without taking upon certain traits so just because someone puts 'Christian' on the census does not mean they practice nor do they ascribe to all of or even some of the Church's ideologies as a result of their faith. The Christian/non-Christian divide is also false, there are many other non-Christian institutions and identities which are as important to the culture of this country's residents as any other. It also tends to create a Christian vs. Queer false binary sum equation.
Also, you haven't totally encapsulated the queer view.
One significant viewpoint is that we shouldn't get the same rights as straight people, that not only is that just a form of neo-liberalism to compare the the penis sizes of what rights we each have but also that marriage is a hetero-normative patriarchal institution that's been used to beat people into traditionally sexed and gendered boxes for far too long. We shouldn't be wearing those white dresses and black tuxedoes because we've fought hard enough that we don't have to. It's very much a socialist/anarchist view springing from the queer movement of the 70s; love who we want, love when we want, love where we want and love what we want which was pushing to show that it doesn't matter if we don't live that way.
I don't think I completely prescribe to that view, I am one of those neo-liberals, I suppose, in that I do want us to have every single right as equal as can be to yours. I doubt I would ever get married, myself, and would push more for dissolution of the marriage institution as a legal one but *shrug* I'm also one of the people who hate that whether someone is born queer comes into it at all. We don't need an excuse to be who we are.
There are also the non-Christian self haters who live with every bit of the shame, if not more, that the Christian 'ex'-gays do. Plenty of Brahman, Muslim, Atheist etc. queers try to change, challenge or repress who they are. So it's not just Christian queers versus non-Christian queers.
I'd also like to note that we're more than gays and lesbians; there are bisexuals, transgendered, intersexed and on and on and so forth. There's also other people who
identify as straight but also kind of fit into this group.
