Crystal, I agree with some of the things you said.
You don't like strangers approaching your children with religious comments. I personally wouldn't like it either and do not speak to other people's children about these things without their permission.
I AM cautious about who my children associate. We strive for friendships with families that have like beliefs. I do not encourage my children to forge strong friendships with those who do not hold similar values to ours, but they are encouraged to be nice and polite and play with other kids if we're in a situation where it would be rude not to. I recently had to tell my children they were no longer allowed to play with the neighbors children because they are gross. Cussing and making sex jokes, and they are YOUNG, like around nine. I'm sure the mom is taking it as Christian snobbery, but had her kids been Christians and doing the same thing I still would have reacted in that manner.
Whatever the case, I have the right as a parent to choose who my children associate with and to teach to behave in my interpretation of what is morally decent. Children are easily led, and it's my responsibililty to ensure they aren't led in what I believe is the wrong way.
As far as whether it's harmful to my children to see gays together, I believe it is spiritually damaging. It is not just a matter of seeing them holding hands together, but once it's accepted as a normal and acceptable lifestyle, the schools kids spend most of their day in for the majority of their formative years will also start teaching it as acceptable and normal. In school we were paired up. In math class we were paired up as fake husband and wife teams to figure out a budget. In gym we paired off male and female for dances. In home ec we were paired off as parents and given an "egg baby" to be responsible for and so on.
Now the schools are trying to get story books in normalizing same-sex relationships/parenthood, in classes they teach acceptance and tolerance of this lifestyle I wouldn't in a million years teach my children was ok. What's that going to do to them?
I teach my children based on the bible and Christian principles. The school and society undo them. Yes, I'm going to be upset and not *tolerate* this! I'm not going to run out and kill homosexuals or throw rocks at them, but I'm certainly not going to say "sure, I'll vote to make this ok, I'll let this be taught to my children."
An example of why this bothers me even further: in a recent case in the news a little girl was raped and sodomized. I consider this two different crimes. Now it isn't and the man will get sentenced based on rape instead of serving the extra time a charge of sodomy would have gotten him, thanks to gays who can't seem to figure out that penises and vaginas go together and insist everyone else get confused about it too. This makes me sick. That girl sufferered enough in a rape, then to be sodomized on top of that and have it not considered as an additional crime...
Where the bible is not clear cut on an issue I tend to try to look at the results of an action to see if it is good or bad. Even if the bible was NOT clear cut or further, wasn't even existant, the results and repercussions of gays acting out their homosexuality and their impact on the laws would tell me it isn't right.
Chrys