I agree with all of you that, as I mentioned above, this is not apples to apples. If we are talking about current severity of repercussion I think there is no doubt that generally being gay would be harder than being Christian in most, but not all, contexts. However this is somewhat mitigated that in liberal cities I think it's reasonable to assume that a gay person will have certain advantages, e.g. in being hired. I'm a bit biased since I work in the arts, but in that milieu being gay will garner much more social and employment capital than being Christian will. That being said, that's a very particular milieu, albeit one that has special significance in the U.S. where media portrayal shapes society just as much as geographical location.
Which American communities do you think it would be hard to be a Christian in?
I ask because I think you're defining a community here as a self-selected social group, not a geographic or demographic one. By that logic, EVERYONE is the subject of discrimination, because the community made up of myself and my best friends doesn't consider everyone else to be me or my best friends.
This is a fine point to raise, but I think I would resist accepting that a geographic grouping would be the best. To bring in an old right-wing argument, it is often posited that academia is largely dominated by left-wing politics, to the point where many humanities courses have critical theory or critical race theory as fundamental axioms. Since this is not a geographical grouping, and according to your definition is 'self-selected' by virtue of the fact that, I suppose, you could have avoided deciding to be an academic, I would reject your strict parameters as such. I do know right-leaning people who work in colleges, and they say they have to basically keep their conservative positions to themselves; to not let the cat out of the bag, as it were, even if people sort of suspect it anyhow. And I think the same will be true in the arts, by and large, but with potentially more severe blowback in the arts (i.e. being shunned in a geographic arts community if you have the wrong opinions).
Rather than say it's hard to be Christian, I would say that it's something that ignites sparks, much as certain other 'groupings' do. Mentioning you're Jewish won't typically raise eyebrows any more (unlike 50 years ago), but 'Christian' has some very negative connotations nowadays to a lot of people. But as I'm agreeing to, so does being gay and being several other things. I think we can't avoid including self-selected scenarios, though, as often the stigmas attached to your values are only present in certain company. By that rationale, all discrimination
is in fact self-selected, in America at least. If you're openly gay in Pakistan that's a different story, there is no circumstance there where you will be ok.
