The difference between Christianity and fundamentalism

I'd like to post this thread as an attack on Christian fundamentalism, where Christian beliefs are abused to deprive others of their rights. This is a topic that comes up every now and then on EMC and elsewhere in life. I live in a country where the largest party are a bunch of fundamentalist bigots, and I have no religion, so this is an issue which affects me. This post is not intended to antagonise anyone, merely to state my views and opposition to people trying to take away the rights of others. I do have to declare, this was originally written as a response in another thread, but it was closed by the time I finished this post. Not wanting to waste it, here it is.

Recently, a registrar in America was thrown in prison. They threw her in prison for discriminating against a gay couple, by refusing to marry them. Discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexual orientation in the course of a business or public service is illegal in the United States, particularly if you choose to discriminate against them by denying them a human right. If you were working in that job and denied a couple the right to marry because they were an interracial or black couple, there would be uproar - and quite rightly. What about 30 or 40 years ago when pastors were speaking out against interracial marriage with the same ferociousness that pastors speak out against same-sex marriage today?

If one tries to justify opposition to marriage equality and the provision of a human right to lesbians, gay and bisexual people with a Bible verse, I would ask, what about the many sins mentioned many more times than homosexuality is mentioned in the Bible? There is very little uproar from pastors and fundamentalists about it.

Even if that wasn't the case, you still wouldn't have the right to make the laws of a country in such a way that they were biased towards a certain religious view or grouping as opposed to an evidence-based policy; if Christian fundamentalists can legislate their beliefs, why can't humanists, atheists, Muslims, Sikhs or those with different religious views? Why does a single group get that privilege? We all hold our own views equally as much as you believe yours, so why do you believe that your cherry-picked contradictory doctrine should take precedence over a nation where over 95 million people are not Christian, let alone the even larger figure of those who aren't Christian fundamentalists?

The indisputable fact is that Christian fundamentalism in all its forms is ran by people looking for power, people who want to victimise the most vulnerable in our society, be it LGBT+ people or young people, and make them feel utterly ashamed of themselves, their bodies, their actions, everything, even taking away their rights to keep them in despair, be it to marriage or to be free to choose one's own religion, then once they are at their lowest, indoctrinate them and hit them hard, telling them that though they are awful, they can save themselves and their eternal soul after they die from torment forever by accepting Jesus as their saviour, and listening to the every word of their pastor or their leader, the guy (usually a guy) at the top, who will have everything to gain, a legion of followers robbed of their minds by the sheer brute force against them when they are at their most vulnerable, most ripe for the picking, most ample for exploitation by complete and utter vultures; and all that sweet, dirty money, funnelled up from collections, all the way to the top.

That's not Christianity by the way, that's Christian fundamentalism, which is Christianity which seeks to take away the rights of others.

There's a big difference, but a thin line. Be careful which side of it you tread on.