"Punishing one group to send a message to another group..."

You only need to attempt a conversation with a leftist to see one issue bleeds into another in THEIR totalitarian perspective.

The utopian totalitarian leftist agenda is "irrational and unfair", so boo hoo, I don't care.

The utopians must be undermined just as they wish to undermine.
Destroy the destroyers.

"gay people have done nothing to deserve the harsh 'sentence'"

"Gay people" in general never asked for reform, pushy co-opting leftists did.

Marriage customs have NEVER been part of the gay underground culture.
Not in the 60's. Not in the 70's. Not in the 80's. NEVER.

It is the Left, now with little to protest about, that co-opted gays and trans and started making all sorts of demands.

Gay people are in no different position than they were already in (where couples are already recognised as de facto).
That's hardly "harsh".

Dear Shocker,

Perhaps the following link may clarify a few
things:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/a-worldwide-history-of-marriage-equality/6549338

A test case in 1970 and some couples being "open" does not a *custom* make.

Gay culture didn't even have MOCK weddings and subversive satire is a *fundamental* part of gay culture.

"Ireland recently became the first [i.e. ONLY] country to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote... Most politicians didn't actively take part for a yes vote or for a no vote. They stood on the sidelines and it was the same thing, actually, within the Catholic Church. Those priests with a younger congregation did not want to alienate those people by coming out with a strong exhortation to vote no."

In other words, it's just conformity to groupthink and peer pressure silencing people.

"Same-sex couples can now legally marry in 17 [White dominant] countries"

None of them Muslim or Asian.
Isn't diversity wonderful!

Dear Shocker,

Yes indeed religion has a lot to answer.

cont'd ...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/05/25/after-same-sex-marriage-in-taiwan-spotlight-turns-to-this-asian-country/#5528acf53b4f

Foxy, "Yes indeed religion has a lot to answer"

Your wishes granted,
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/same-sex-marriage-and-the-persecution-of-christians-in-canada

Tres 'Progressive', what?