It’s easy to understand how an LGBT person would be appalled by Christianity and Islam when their scriptures explicitly condemn homosexuality based not on any divine wisdom but on the bigotry and ignorance that flowed from the ancient patriarchal cultures in question.

I can just imagine what it would be like to be singled out and condemned in the Bible or the Quran, and threatened with everlasting hellfire, knowing that homosexuality isn’t a choice but would had to have been created by God, along with heterosexuality. LGBT folks have, then, firsthand knowledge of the absurdity of these religions: they know the scriptures and religions are incoherent on this important point.

Technically, these evangelical theists can say that God needn’t be blamed for human actions. God gave us freewill and he’ll judge us for our actions. But the problem of evil is much deeper than the traditional philosophical formulation would suggest. The entire metaphor of God as judge, moralist, or loving father is grotesque and obsolete. It might have made sense when the ancient geocentric view of the universe was taken for granted, but by now this metaphor is a poor joke.

The natural universe is amoral and inhuman. So are the kings and emperors, dictators and CEOs who’ve naturally been corrupted by their absolute power over others. Why would we expect the god of monotheists to be any less amoral and inhuman?

I’m sure you love and treat your dog as a family member, but we’re prone to anthropomorphizing things. Lots of people treat their Tamagotchis as living creatures, but they’re just simple digital toys. I remember that in public school the other students and I were given eggs and told to draw faces on them and take the eggs home and treat them like babies. It was easy to imagine the egg is alive and has a character even though we knew that was preposterous, because we have a social instinct that can be overextended.

I’m not saying pets are as lifeless as that, but they’re not people either. In some ways they may be better than people, as you suggest, but that too is in the eye of the beholder.