But the history of the Religious Right provides vital context to their current claims. It is anything but a history of “live and let live” and respect for religious pluralism. Instead, it is a history of strident, uncompromising opposition to anything that diminishes the stigma of second-class citizenship for LGBT people, in situations having nothing to do with protecting anyone’s religious exercise rights. We see this in the movement’s intense resistance to cultural change having nothing to do with the principle of religious liberty.
I may fall on the far left side of the ideological spectrum, but I have my parents to thank for teaching me that people are people and deserve to live as they choose. I learned early in life that not everyone can be wedged into the same box…even though virtually everyone around me in the small northern Minnesota town I grew up easily fit into that box. At least so far as I could tell.
As I went to college and my horizons began to broaden, I began to notice that people were in fact an amazingly diverse amalgamation of bipeds. Some things I understood, some I didn’t, but I knew that it wasn’t my place to judge the decisions others made for themselves. I had friends, and later a roommate, who were gay. While I didn’t really understand the appeal, I was OK with it because they were good people whose friendship I valued…and they just happened to be gay.
I like girls and, as a confirmed, card-carrying heterosexual, always have. My attitude toward homosexuality has always been profoundly ambivalent- I don’t really care, but then I don’t need to. It’s not my place to judge how others lives their lives. That’s my take on sexuality, though; I recognize and understand that others may see things differently and live different lives. What I don’t understand is why so many are still so furiously determined to force homosexuals so deeply back into the closet that they can be virtually legislated out of existence. I’m saddened beyond words that there exists a class of people who, in the name of “religious liberty,” would stuff all Americans into the same box and force them to obey their prejudice, fears, and moral standards.
I still have friends and acquaintances who happen to be gay. I value their company and their companionship because they’re good people, the sort I want in my life. That they have to live and love differently isn’t even part of the equation for me…because it has absolutely no impact on my life or our friendship. Silly me; I thought this was the way it was supposed to be in a country that claims to value freedom and liberty. I’ve had to watch some of these same people struggle to achieve legal rights that many of us take for granted- marriage, adoption rights, survivorship, tax planning…and the list goes on. That all of this is because one aspect of their humanity- their sexuality- is different from the majority seems unconscionable. They’re people, and they shouldn’t have to struggle to be treated as such.
I find it particularly interesting that in the reading and research I’ve done regarding the Religious Right’s claim to “religious liberty,” there’s precious little discussion of their RELIGION. Rarely do I see Scripture quoted, or mentions of the teachings of Jesus Christ (perhaps because He never preached against homosexuality or same-sex marriage). There’s little to no mention of a loving God, or loving others as you would wish yourself to be loved. Truth be told, in some cases it would be difficult to recognize that religion is even the alleged basis of the Social Conservative crusade against the LGBT community. I may be an atheist, but I spent enough time in Sunday School during my schoolboy days to understand that the God I was taught about was loving, kind, welcoming, and forgiving. The God of the Rabid Religious Right is an angry, mean-spirited son of a bitch who would just as soon smite you as bless you.
When you break it down, it’s not about Christianity- or religion globally- at all. It’s about a vocal, committed minority of hate-driven narrow-minded busybodies determined to ensure that the LGBT community is legally defined as second class, without rights or recourse. It’s about those so consumed with hatred that they’d twist their faith into something unrecognizable, something as evil and unappealing as the “sin” they rail against. It’s sad that more than four decades after the American Psychological Association stopped classifying homosexuality as a “mental disorder,” there are still those committed to denying a minority class basic human right because they hate them JUST. THAT. MUCH.
I’d feel sorry for these folks if they weren’t so pathetically committed to forcing their morality onto America as a whole and to intruding into the lives of Americans who simply want to be left alone to live their lives as they choose.
When you hear people prattle on about “religious liberty,” rest assured it has little to do with anything resembling religion. It’s about the desire of those so consumed by hatred that they’d corrupt the teaching of the Christianity they claim to revere in order to force their narrow, hateful agenda upon all Americans.
And people wonder why I’m good without God….
