Not at liberty

Someone somewhere is afraid. That fear leads them to believe that because some things are changing in America, that what they have been comfortable with is under attack.
Someone else has taken hold of that fear and tried to magnify it one hundred fold. Because where one person is scared that their ideology is under attack, there are others who feel the same. And even if they don't, they will, because it's nice to feel righteous indignation in the face of being wrong.

If I believe the the Yankees are the best ball team hands down, and someone shows me that Kansas City is 7-0 compared to the Yankees 3-5, I might get a little shaken up. I have to face the fact that I'm wrong. That's scary.

Now, I have the freedom to continue believing that the Yanks are the best team, even in face of evidence to the contrary, but this cognitive dissonance in no way exemplifies a love of truth.
It just shows denial, and fear. And those two things love the idea of being persecuted by the 'others' who see the truth for what it is. Those Royals fans are ruining baseball for Yankees fans!

No one is persecuting Christian's right to believe what they want. Just because gay marriage is taking hold across the nation, and people are becoming more aware of the outdated patriarchal ways that Christianity lends itself to -- in fact depends on -- and are tired of it, doesn't mean that Christians can no longer live the same way they always have.

What it means, however is that things are changing and Christians cannot deal with it.

That fills them with fear. They want to deny the reality. As above, fear and denial love the idea that because things are changing it means that Christians are under attack.

So, while a Christian can choose to believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that the patriarchal ways of some denominations are good and sound, even in the face of huge change, it doesn't mean that their way of life is under attack. It just means that the realization of having been duped is much harder to deal with than continuing to do things the same old way.

In this country we have the freedom to do many things, but we are not at liberty to persecute members of any faith, legally.

We are not at liberty to call you out on those issues where you are hanging on to bad dogma.

But we are at liberty to grow, change and make this world safe and habitable by all walks of life. If your faith prevents you, fine. You are not at liberty to shriek "PERSECUTION" just because you don't like what you see.