Susan, if I say, to a group of people of faith who firmly believe God says homosexuality (using that as an example; it isn't the single difficulty) is a sin, and that marriage cannot be entered into by same sex couples, that I don't think that their belief is a good reason to make laws against same sex marriage, or indeed, same sex relationships, I won't get anywhere no matter how I couch my argument, because that set of people of faith believes a supreme being to whom they owe first and full allegiance has set the resolution of the matter in stone.

How can my human argument, however reasoned and polite, compete with that of the supposed creator of the universe in these peoples' minds? This leads to feelings of futility in secularists like myself, and some of us then resort to the usual primate poo-flinging to express our feelings. I have had many polite discussions with theists, but eventually, it is I who must give up, because the person of faith will not see my point from behind the veil of his desire to please the invisible.

I recently had a long discussion with a lovely and intelligent man regarding the various scriptural references to women as lesser beings. The man is essentially a feminist, and he made an admirable effort to construct an apologetic interpreting these scriptures as supportive of women as equals to men, but with differing roles within the church only. Where it fell down for me was where the role of the man was to be the 'spokesperson' to God for the family, and he could not explain why, women being equal, they were not to take on that role. He could not see why I saw that as a problem, that if God himself defines one gender as more desireable to speak with than the other, we have a problem. I gave up politely, but I could have allowed my frustration with his blindness to surface in open anger.

The moral of that anecdote is as I have been trying to say: faith often makes people apparently blind.

As an aside, there are faith groups (The United Church of Canada, for example) who embrace same sex couples, but they are few.