The current excuse for the evil bigotry the Republican Party has displayed and advanced with respect to gays and marriage equality is that state action recognizing gay marriage and banning discrimination against gays infringes the religious freedom of those who oppose gays on religious grounds.
The Reverend Emily C. Heath of the United Church of Christ has published a wonderful test to determine whether a person’s religious freedom is truly being violated. Let’s take it together, shall we?
1. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.2. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.3. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.4. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.5. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.6. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.7. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.8. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.9. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.10. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.Scoring key:
If you answered “A” to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can fight for your equality — not your superiority.
If you answered “B” to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.
Indeed. Whenever one of these radical evangelical conservatives preach on about how birth control or abortion or gay marriage or anti-discrimination violates their religious beliefs and thus the state must some kind of action to stop it, what they are doing is not protecting religious liberty but ending it. What these people want is a theocracy. They want to set fire to the First Amendment to the Constitution and declare that all Americans must be evangelical Christians who have found Jesus, who believe that Jesus carries an AR-15 and just loves those money changers in the Temple and of course the rich and capitalism, and that all laws passed by Congress must first be approved by a Death Panel of Priests.