Wow, this thread has blown up. Figure I'd give my two cents, seeing how I'm both a lifelong Republican and a conservative Christian. "Conservative Christian" to me, or rather "conservative Protestant", basically means that I think the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith in the church. Christians like myself are beholden to it as the ultimate authority on matters of morality and ethics, as it is God's revelation to man of what is good and what is evil.
For me, being a Christian comes before being a Republican, and I am only a Republican because I feel that GOP policies largely fit with my Christian ethics. And I think a significant part of the political coalition that comprises the GOP are conservative Christians with the same perspective.
This matters because the fact of the matter is the Bible identifies homosexual acts as sinful, and anyone participating in such acts needs to repent (meaning admit wrongdoing and turn away from that behavior). This isn't going away. As long as there are Christians like me who take the Bible as our final authority, there will be Christians who condemn homosexuality.
The interests of the "LGBT community" are fundamentally opposed to the interests of conservative Christians, in my view. I think the government of a secular society should be very limited in "legislating morality". But there is an area the government is involved in by necessity, marriage. I don't think the government should get its nose out of marriage altogether, I think state recognized marriages are essential. Largely for the protection of the weaker spouse, whichever that is. Alimony, child custody, power of attorney in medical emergencies, tax purposes. Without state marriage licenses, what rights does a father have if the mother decides to run off with their children? So to get government out of marriage is to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
But if government is involved in marriage, and it decides to recognize marriage between people of the same sex, things get sticky. Conservative Christians don't recognize such marriages as valid, and in fact see them as fundamentally sinful. Christian business owners feel morally obligated to not participate in anything involving a same sex marriage. But same sex couples can come back and say such behavior is discriminatory - and they're right! Conservative Christians are going to want their elected representatives to stand for their religious liberty to conduct business according to their conscience. And this is just one example. As long as the GOP want to maintain the support of conservative Christians, they can't give full support to LGBT interests. Therefore, from my perspective, if the GOP is to keep conservative Christians in its coalition, it is incompatible with the LGBT community.
Levantine/Mediterranean and also a Christian. Judaism doesn’t really become Judaism till the Talmud, before that it was more so the name of a Roman province and earlier one specific state/tribe of the Hebrews/Israelites that was known as Judea. Judaism and Christianity are both religions that are offshoots of the Hebrews/Israelites that are both centered around Christ, either acceptance or rejection of him. The picture of “this is what Jesus really looked like” with him as a dark Arab doesn’t really capture the features of the people of that region much, and seeing how it was pre Arab invasion too that admixture wouldn’t be remotely as strong as it is in the region today. It’s the same weird racial propaganda as blonde haired blue eyed Nordic Jesus and black Jesus, in a thin veneer of science. There’s a misconception that the Old Testament is all about the Jews and that they are the chosen people of God that runs through evangelical Christianity which has zero basis in anything biblical.
The Judaism of Jesus' day wasn't the same thing as modern Judaism, but it's still a form of Judaism. I've seen it referred to as "Second Temple Judaism".
Jesus probably didn't look exactly like a dark skinned Arab, but he also definitely wasn't white. That said, the European tradition of depicting Jesus with European features isn't some sinister racist conspiracy. When you look at artistic depictions of Jesus throughout history, you actually find every culture depicting Jesus as one of their society. Ie, Ethiopian Christians depicting Jesus as a dark skinned African. The prevalence of "white Jesus" is an expression of how Europeans did come to be culturally dominant in the modern world. With all that said, I think it's a good thing that our modern culture is more racially aware in recognizing that Jesus likely didn't look like a white European.
Your last point about the Old Testament is pretty off base though. Yes, the Old Testament is about Abraham and his descendants being chosen by God, becoming the people of Israel, and the history of those people and prophecies regarding them. I'm curious what else you could have in mind that the Old Testament is about.
