Jen McCreight has a post up about religion as a dating or relationship deal breaker. Here are my 2 cents on this :
Lying. THE deal breaker for me. If you lie to me, you’re gone, never to return. I do not take kindly to lying on any occasion, but if I’m in a relationship, or even just on a date and this happens, that just kills the trust that I need to go on.
Social neanderthalism. Like, having Victorian ideas of roles between partners (woman in the kitchen etc.), or for a recent example, opposing same-sex marriage, or general homophobia. I don’t think that could work for me, same with racist views.
I don’t think that things like what music you listen to, whether you’re a nerd or not, where you like to travel or what TV shows you like are important enough to become deal breakers for people who talk to each other and have a modicum of an ability to compromise.
Now as to religion, I have to say that I don’t think that anyone who holds religious views is automatically out as a prospective date for me. Again, see above. If a religious person told me for example that she won’t ask me to go to church with her ever, only to do so after 3 months, that’s lying, and I would have a big problem with that. The same would apply for any social neanderthalism that might have come bundled with her faith. But some nice person who I can trust and who holds a religious belief that is not paraded in anyone’s face, including any potential children’s ? Why ever not ? Now, you may argue that such an unobtrusive and reasonable religious person might be hard to find, and you might be right, but I wouldn’t categorically exclude dating any religious person ever, just because they are religious. It’s not so much bigotry to exclude one group of people, as Jen mentions in her post, I think it’s just plain stupid.
And I certainly wouldn’t only look to date atheists ever, based on the assumption that somehow dating someone who lacks the same beliefs as me will magically work out much better just because of that. I think it is more important for any date or relationship to work, which shared ideals, interests and beliefs are there, rather than which ones are absent.
