Soapbox

Freedom from Reason

Religious Freedom

    I don't think that term means what you think it means.

    What Religious freedom does mean is that the Amish get to drive around in buggies if they want to. It means that the Mormon's get to wear their special underwear, Orthodox Jews get to wear their yarmulkas and believe that God will get angry if they turn on the stove after sundown on the Sabbath. Religious freedom means that the Duggars get to have as many kids as that poor woman's body can crank out and Catholics get to believe that unbaptized stillborn babies are condemned by God for the sins of humanity to some limbo existence.
     Whatever. Believe what makes you happy… or makes you feel superior, if that's what makes you happy.
     That's your right.

    But if 'Religious Freedom" meant what the Catholic League, Bryan Fisher, Tony Perkins, the American Family Association, Rick Santorum and all their  friends and followers insist it means–  then we would all be driving around in buggies. Or wearing magic underwear.

   You and your church are free to believe that blacks are inferior and should not be allowed to marry white people. That's allowed in America, and there are still (far too many) people out there who feel this way. No one can ever pass a law to say that they cannot believe this, or that their church must ever allow a mixed race marriage to happen under it's roof.
     But imagine if a presidential candidate was touring the country shouting that allowing black and white couples to get married in any courthouse anywhere violated his religious freedom.
    Imagine he announced that the first thing he would do as president would be to un-marry  all the mixed race couples in this nation because traditionally, marriage was between two people of the same race. Or two people of the same religion. Suppose he said he would burn the marriage licenses of any couples where the parties practiced different religions… in order to protect the sanctity of marriage and strengthen families, of course.

    You'd say he was nuts!  You'd say his religious freedom ends at the tip of his own darn nose, which he should keep out of your religion. And you'd tell those Amish they could have your iPhone when they pried it out of your cold, dead fingers.

     Being told "You don't get to decide how the rest of us live our lives' is not the same thing as being told "You don't get to practice your religion'. For the Catholic Bishops and members of the far right to pretend that it is the same is ridiculous, demonstrates a breath-taking sense of entitlement, and is contrary to everything democracy means. Yet the  Republican party is by and large, backing them up, and the media is letting them get away with it.

     Now we have a televangalist from California telling his gullible, desperately seeking martyrdom followers that allowing other people to make their own choices in matters that do not impact the lives of any members of his church at all will mean the total destruction of religious liberty. He says it will end parental rights, will force pastors out of existence and may even "cost us our lives."

    Yes, he wants you to believe in the spectre of pogrammes of gay married couples on pink horses, riding through town burning churches and gunning down straight parents with their gay death ray. All because 2 consenting adults who love each other are allowed to get married.

   You know what really would  force pastors like him out of existence? If we treated "religious freedom" as if it meant what he claims it does. If the Amish had the same "religious liberty" to dictate his life choices that he demands over women and homosexuals,  this horrible man would not even  be on TV, getting  wealthy from preaching bible-based hate. Because the religious freedom of the Amish would mean that if  they don't believe in electricity, none of us get to have it.

Yep.
Pull. The. Plug. That sounds pretty good right now.