Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Religious Freedom

Dear Uninformed Faux Christians -

Religious Freedom is the right to practice your religion. End of Story! Period!

Religious Freedom does not give you the right to discriminate. Your personal beliefs give you that ability, not your religion. 

Nowhere in the Bible does it state "thou shall discriminate" or "thou shall pick and choose to follow only the Biblical passages that you use to justify your discrimination". Those aren't parts of the Bible. 

The fact that you feel comfortable taking the Bible out of context to justify your discrimination is quite sad. 

Freedom of Religion, as defined by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States means a person has the right to "practice his or her own religion, or no religion at all". The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment grants the right to "worship or not as you choose". 

Nowhere, not nowhere, no way, no how, in any way, shape or form and all that jazz, does the First Amendment state you can openly discriminate against an individual because of your religious beliefs.

As noted above, the Bible does not state THOU SHALL DISCRIMINATE! It does state THOU SHALL NOT JUDGE, LEST YE BE JUDGED and LOVE THY NEIGHBOR.

When you openly discriminate because of a false understanding of the words religious freedom, you are judging and you are not loving thy neighbor. And yes, whether you know it or not, you probably have a gay neighbor.

So, when you, perhaps as a county clerk in say, well, maybe . . . Kentucky, claim that issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple goes against your religious beliefs, well, that's an outright lie. It goes against your personal beliefs.

Perhaps you should spend some time understanding the difference between personal and religious beliefs before standing up and proclaiming that doing your job is against your religious beliefs.

On that note, divorce is mentioned in the Bible way more often than same-sex relations. Have you, oh say, said county clerk, in say, KY, or perhaps, a judge in say, well, maybe, let's see, OH, ever issued a marriage license to a divorced person and/or performed a marriage ceremony to a divorced person? Shouldn't that be against your religious beliefs? Why, yes, it should! I thought I'd answer the question for you since you're obviously having a hard time with understanding things right now!

So, dear, uninformed, faux Christians . . . please say it like it is, not how you wish it to be. Stand up, be proud, and be courageous and say: I personally don't believe in same-sex marriage and it has absolutely nothing to do with my freedom of religion, only with my own personal bias. Be proud when you state that you feel you're a superior person because you were born heterosexual rather than homosexual - btw, no choice, all genetics, not matter what you think - and feel that the equal protection clause should only apply to heterosexuals. Shout it from the mountaintops when you declare that only certain people deserve equal protection under the law. Do not hide behind religious freedom and use the Bible out of context to justify your contempt for your friends, neighbors, family, people you meet on the street or interact with on a daily basis. 

You have an absolute right to your opinions and personal beliefs. You have an absolute right to declare those opinions and personal beliefs. But the key here is personal and not religious!

So, next time, dear faux Christian, you want to use your religion not to perform your job or deny equal protection under the law to citizens of the United States of America, please do so honestly without claiming religion has anything to do with it . . . because it doesn't!

S