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Letter to the Editor: Religion as an excuse for injustice

Monday, February 8, 2010

I have watched the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial about same-sex marriage in San Francisco with great interest. There are, as is usual with such debates, two sides to this coin. On one, individuals claim that the secular government is a guarantor of civil rights. On the other, individuals claim that the government has a responsibility to codify religious doctrines of the majority.

Which side is right? It may well be impossible to know. However, we should be mindful that, when it comes to the latter, we have heard this all before.

In the debate over slavery, personas like Reverend R. Furman and Jefferson Davis claimed that the right to own slaves was ordained by the bible.

In the debate over suffrage for women, individuals claimed that Eve’s creation subsequent to Adam indicated that God intended for only men to have a say in governance.

In the debate over segregation, laws including those that banned interracial marriage were based, and defended, upon the notion that God created the white race superior to (so-called) mongrel races and that He abhorred mutts and co-mingling.

Indeed, we’ve heard this all before. We’ve seen the face of the legal institution of religious discrimination; it was not right then, and it is not right now.

Whether this case comes down to the right to see religious intolerance enshrined in law, or the right to be safeguarded from oppression by government, we would do well to ask: in 20, 30 or 40 years, will our children see in us the same face of hatred that we have seen in previous generations?

And, perhaps more importantly, will that face be any less insidious because it is hidden behind a mask of religion?

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Comments

Letter to the Editor: Religion as an excuse for injustice

The concept of race has existed for thousands of years. Read you precious Old Testament to see how fragmentation along tribal lines led to slavery and genocide. Google "slavery bible" and you'll see where slavery is mentioned in the Bible. Search a bit and you'll find justifications for slavery using the Bible as evidence. Whether or not the Bible condones it isn't even the point. When religion becomes part of politics, the evidence no longer matters because it will all get distorted and be used as legitimizing evidence whether or not that is true.

Hitler used Christianity to demonize Jewish people and show how they were inferior. This is historical fact. Mel Gibson used a similar tactic in his Passion of the Christ movie. Jews, on the whole, have been ostracized throughout all of Western Civilization. They were ostracized for their religious beliefs. This is evident in the Inquisition during the Middle Ages and the Spanish Inquisition several centuries later.

When the Spanish conquered the Americas, they used religion to justify their claims and created laws governing "purity of blood." They created all kinds of categories: mulatto, ladino, indio, and creole to name a few. They argued that they had to "save" the barbarous native people because the devil was the cause and inspiration of the native religious practices.

Religion and politics together isn't a problem? What about this nonsensical struggle in the Gaza strip. People are fighting over barren, worthless land because of their belief that somehow it's sacred. Whether or not it is in reality isn't the point, the point is that people get all riled up when it comes to their religion, and this causes problems. To say otherwise is to be ignorant not only of history but of the world in which we live.

Letter to the Editor: Religion as an excuse for injustice

It's "unalienable" not inalienable rights. Unalienable means unable to be transferred or sold. Inalienable means unable to be taken away without consent. The difference is subtle but important.

These rights do not come from any sort of religious idea. They come from Enlightenment philosophers. The concept of inherent rights was a rejection of the idea of absolute monarchy or rule by divine right. By REMOVING the idea that the right to rule comes from some divine being, we are left with the idea that we as human beings have our rights simply because we are human. That's all there is to it. John Locke wrote that we have the right to "life, liberty and property." This has nothing to do with religion, and if you cracked open a history book you'd see that what I'm saying is (albeit very brief) true. By using the word "creator" in the Declaration of Independence, this leaves the entire idea completely ambiguous: the "creator" is never specified. If the creator is simply the earth itself, that's enough justification. It doesn't matter what the creator actually is because the concept is that we as humans have inherent rights because we are human.

Forcing people to accept the morality that marriage is between a man and a woman is "FORCED MORAL ACCEPTANCE" in the opposite direction of allowing any two people to marry. Because this morality is not found in all religions, it means that it is, by nature, exclusive to certain religions, and this means that it is "FORCED MORAL ACCEPTANCE" on the part of certain religions and certain people who hold that their moral beliefs are superior to those of other religions or philosophies that do not hold the same ideas to be true.

The most logical thing would be to allow any two consenting adults to have civil unions and marriages according to any religion that allows such unions to take place. If marriage is only a religious thing, then all we need is one religion that allows it, and thus it becomes protected free speech. I'm surprised no one has adopted this as a legal argument.

By now allowing marriage between two individuals, that makes it behavior invalidated by particular moral teachings that are specific to a few religions. This is a violation of equal rights, and the right to be free from religion.

Letter to the Editor: Religion as an excuse for injustice

You are comparing apples and oranges. The bible does not condone slavery but acknowledges it's existance. Slavery was not based on race but was usually the downside of battles. The slavery practised in the South was based on race (how did we get talking about race when the topic was gay marriage?) and practised by the Engish, Spanish, Dutch, and French before it was practised by Americans. Aristotle (here comes that Western Civ) admitted that some people were born to be slaves.
Okay, what does that have to do with gay marriage...Nothing really, it is what is called a red herring. It is an attempt to get you to feel guilt about one subject and then transfer that feeling to another subject.
Marriage in every religion, every nation, and every culture has been primarly between one man and one woman. There are some cultures where polygamy is practised but the man-woman concept is universal. That is what marriage is, period. For the gay lobby to be satisfied the definition of marriage would have to be changed but that still wouldn't change what we are talking about. In fact, gay people are allowed to be married just like everyone else in this country (the 14th admendment) as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex who is not a relative by one degree of separation, or two in some states. The argument about interracial marriage does not change the definition of man-woman only race and those restrictions were not universal. The constitution did not support the interracial marriage laws and they were struck down in 1981 when the Supreme Court got the case.

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