Why do I think this could happen? Because it has happened elsewhere, and we're on the same road now. If you look at the Cultural Revolution in China, it was perpetrated by the young and naive who had been brought up to believe that there was only Mao's way or the highway. Same with the Hitler Youth, who aided and abetted in the persecution of Jews--young, naive, had their heads stuffed with totalitarian thinking. It could happen here, and the reason I'm convinced of that is because of the speed of the latest cultural convulsion, which took place under the guise of LGBTQ acceptance.
Now, if you read the title of this post, you'll understand that I do believe in LGBTQ acceptance. I accept that a person with sexuality different than mine is every bit as human as I, every bit a child of God as I, every bit as worthy of equal treatment before the law as I. And that is because...wait for it...your sexuality doesn't define you as much as you may think it does. It may define what you do in the bedroom, but LGBTQ people are just people and people spend the vast majority of their time outside of the bedroom.
Here's the point: I wish we would stop focusing on sexuality (and on race), and focus instead on what a person does or doesn't do for society. THAT is what affects us all, not bedroom behavior, which only affects those together in the bedroom. Don't focus on whether you are straight or gay, but whether you are a producer or a consumer. Do you contribute to the good of society, or are you a drain on society? Are you a totalitarian or a libertarian or somewhere in between? Do you support, in word and deed, the right of others to disagree with you? Do you think you have a right to the fruit of the work of another person, or just your own? Are you a peaceful person, or do you support encroachment in any form? These are the things that affect ALL of us.
Encroachment, for anyone who needs a definition, is one person or group taking away the natural rights of others. Natural or negative rights, for anyone who needs a definition (fantastic article here), are those rights that exist within you: the right to life which includes the right to the fruit of your own labor, which supports life. The right to liberty, to be free to follow whatever route you want to take to happiness as long as you don't encroach on others. Negative rights are "negative" in the sense that they are "freedom from" rights--freedom from others intervening in your life in ways you do not want. Not included here are the positive rights, which are those that a parent owes to a child, but not that adults owe to other competent adults: food, housing, education, employment, health care, etc. Watch this video for a more thorough explanation of rights.
(There IS one more piece of Peace besides liberty, and that is compassion. What about the incompetent adults, or children without a competent adult family member--they need help. But helping them needn't destroy liberty, as voluntary action on the part of compassionate individuals can and will (in a society which is growing ever richer) fill these needs without government force in the equation. Or it would do so, if government hadn't started trying to be everyone's parent. It could do so again, if this is handled right.)
Back to rights: So do I have a right to be a member of whatever church I want? Can I be excluded based upon my income, education, race, gender, sexuality or just a random whim? Yes, yes, and yes. It's called freedom of association, and it goes hand in hand with property rights. If I use my time and effort to build a home, I have the right to allow or disallow anyone to enter it. If I use my time and effort to build a church, don't I have that same right? A store? Yep. A golf course? Yep. As long as you didn't encroach on anyone else's rights when you built that thing, you can use it however you want. If there are a hundred churches, golf courses, churches, etc. in my town that I can't enter, it doesn't materially affect me, since I am still free to build my own church, golf course, or store and let all my best friends in. It may hurt your feelings to be excluded from someone's store or church, but in this country we are free to hurt others' feelings. Laws are to protect us from real harm; religion, from which springs societal norms, is to help us not want to harm emotions, or to forgive them if they hurt us.
Now, I know a lot of you right now are saying, "oh, but that was so sad when segregation was rampant in America," and I agree with you. I am delighted to not see "whites only" signs above drinking fountains, etc. This is key: any services which are set up by the government should benefit everyone who has paid the taxes that fund them--no segregation or exclusion; the military fits into this category. But a church doesn't go around demanding at gunpoint that everyone pay tithing, (we all pay our taxes with the threat of deadly force backing up the IRS) so there is no one who can fairly demand that they be included in services provided by the church.
I am delighted that over the past century the world in general has become less sexist, less racist. I think that is mostly a result of the world becoming richer; less competition for scarce resources creates less tribalism. But that is a side note to the central point, which is that freedom of speech, freedom of religion and property rights are not optional in a peaceful society. From peace flows every other good blessing: health, wealth, safety, and, if you're lucky, happiness.
