The issue about gay practice is therefore about what we believe about God's will in this matter and why. The willingness of this guy to abandon his principles in the face of the hypothetical possibility of his daughter being a lesbian suggests a somewhat limited engagement with the issue. Being a Christian does not mean doing everything you can to ensure that you and everyone around you has a prosperous and healthy life - at times it means standing up for God's way when that choice means imprisonment or even death.

Or, from my perspective, it means reexamining those teachings that are cruel when confronted with reality. This involves some amount of compassion and empathy, but when it concerns your own offspring this is often a natural process. To his credit, he somewhat acknowledges his biological bias.

Know what you believe, know why you believe it, and then be prepared to stand up for it. Anything else is 'just being nice. And a way of staying in touch with the neighbours' as Terry Pratchett describes it in 'Carpe Jugulum'.

This we can agree on. Or better still, as Bertrand Russell put it, "Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it."