For the purpose of this blog little c christian refers to "fake look at me cry" religious people. Christian with a big C refers to people who actually follow Christ.
With constant reminders of how we are in the modern age, how we are so advanced and enlightened, how I live in richest, most powerful and most free nation in the world, I'm getting really fucking sick and tired of stories like this. How can we call ourselves the land of the free when we actively seek to deny human rights to humans? You can't say its "religious rights" when you deny rights to another, even more so when they are the same rights you would raise a bitch fest over. To make a long story short, recently the Kansas House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would allow people and businesses to refuse service based on sexual orientation or marital status if doing so would be contrary to the “sincerely held religious beliefs of the individual. "Religious beliefs" wasn't clarified by the article or by the state Rep, but considering the track record, one can safely assume it means his version of what he calls christian beliefs. Also while I find the whole law insulting on a purely human level, what really stuck out with me was this;
State Rep. Charles Macheers drafted the proposed legislation and argued it would prevent “hurtful” discrimination, claiming the bill would give business owners their right to religious freedom.
“There have been times throughout history where people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs because they were unpopular,” Macheers said. “This bill provides a shield of protection for that.”
When I think of the story of Jesus, denying life and love is not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, here he is, forging a law that would do just that. Conservative Republicans and the "religious" right in general need to stop crying in pseudo outrage over sharia law when they are guilty of the same bullshit agenda. The lack of history about our very nation, compassion for fellow human beings, and integrity for their own word is appalling. What happened to the party that freed the slaves and fought for civil rights? Just look what they do with their "cries" for religious liberty. Anything associated with Islam and it's suddenly insta-bad. Sharia law is evil! It has no place in America! It must be banned from all forms of government! Pagans, Hindus or any other minority faith want equal rights? Want fair treatment under the law? Sorry no can do because only one version of one faith is allow in these parts. But use (christian) God into the mix and/or call it christian and it's suddenly good. God told me to do this, therefor it's right! You can't do anything against me, because my faith says I can do this! Waaaaaaaaaah I won't religious freedom, but screw all the other faiths. If I'm not center stage I'm being persecuted!
How about no.
I get it, I really do. Religious liberty or religious freedom to these people means that only christian sharia law is constitutional, is moral. It's adolescent at best, deadly at worse. I know I already said this, but how can they honestly justify denying rights and services they themselves would not tolerate? Would they be ok with hospitals denying Christians services? Of course not, because such a thing would be outrageous. But here we are, in 2014, with already cases of religious people denying rights to homosexual couples. One wonders how long before people start dying over this... because you know some will.
Silly me actually thinks even a fundamentalist (of any faith) would agree the loss of one life is one to many... but that might be hopping for to much.
How many times must we have bigotry concealed behind religion before it is no longer tolerated? How many times must we suffer a potentially murderous situation when police and medical professionals can deny life saving services before it is no longer tolerated? When will people wake up and learn that one's faith is one's faith, it is not something to be forced on others.
I want to end this blog with a speech from Dan Savage, which just about sums up this blog better than I ever could.
“People often point out that they can’t help it. They can’t help with the anti-gay bullyings because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things.
The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn’t say Christians don’t own people. Paul talks about how Christians own people. We ignore what the Bible said about slavery because the Bible got slavery wrong. Sam Harris in Letter to a Christian Nation points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong: slavery.
What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100%. The Bible says that if your daughter’s not a virgin on her wedding night – that a woman isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, that she shall be dragged to her father’s doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they’re not virgins. At least not yet. We don’t know where the GOP is going these days. People are dying because people can’t clear this one last hurdle. They can’t get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality.
One thing I want to talk about is – ha, so you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back in because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny that someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react to being pushed back. I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings but I have the right to defend myself, and to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible and insisting that we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.”
Bible isn't a buffet? Who would have thought...
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