Civil Unions Are A First Amendment Issue

I have written about gay marriage before. Today I will write about Civil Unions because yesterday the Colorado Senate passed a bill allowing Civil Unions.

As usual, there seem to be a large number of Christians (fundamentalists) who say they are against this. In fact, these "Christianists" as I am going to call them from now on, are boo-hooing that their First Amendment rights are being trampled on. These Christianists argue that the state is making a law which is against their religion and that because of this, the law is illegal.

But this is a perverted twisting of the First Amendment.

The First Amendment disallows any federal law which is made IN FAVOR of a religion because otherwise that religion would become favored in the eyes of the law.

The Christianists make it seem as if anyone who is in favor of Gay Marriage or Civil Unions is doing so based on their own interpretation of religious law--that in effect the federal government is favoring the "Gay Religious Movement" over the Christian Religious movement.

This is not what is happening.

Allowing Civil Unions and Gay Marriage is not an attempt to impress one religious view over another. Rather, by allowing Civil Unions and Gay Marriage we are breaking the bonds that religion holds over our society.

This is a wonderful thing.

Breaking the bonds that religion holds over our society means that religion will now be about GOD and not about CONTROL.

What a wonderful thing to do--both for our society and for religion.

And those people who still want their religion to be about control?

They can still be religious in that way. Go ahead. You're free to do it. You just can't use your religion to control other people.

Way to go Civil Unions!

Religious Right is Wrong When it Comes to Guns

I have written before about the large numbers of Bible-believing Christians who are advocating against any governmental control (link here) of guns. Anyone standing outside the walls of the fundamentalist community might find it strange that people who strongly profess to have a loving God (Jesus) would also strongly profess their governmental right to kill people with very powerful weapons.

I have watched this debate with some interest—scanning the talking heads out there for any evidence that SOMEONE in the Bible-believing community finds the whole gun rights argument to be outside the purview of religion. I have not yet found anyone, although I am sure that they exist. However, I did hear of a Christian pastor who gave a reason why the fundamentalist community is so strongly in favor of killing people with very strong weapons.

This pastor said, “The biblical basis for this is the Golden Rule.” He then continued; “Do unto other what you would have done unto you.”

I was momentarily taken aback. I do not want someone to murder me, how could I then go out and murder someone? Surely this was not what that pastor meant.

That pastor was talking about protecting other people. The fundamentalist Christian community uses The Golden Rule as their reason for being “The Great Protector.” They want the right to carry powerful weapons because they feel that no one else is going to protect them.

This may be a philosophy, but it’s not a good religious philosophy. In fact, using the Golden Rule as the basis for killing people with very powerful weapons is the ANTITHESIS of good religious philosophy. Let me state this more clearly.

One of the passages in the Hebrew Bible which gives Christians the foundation for their Golden Rule is Leviticus 19:18—“…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Do unto others is related to loving other people as yourself. This makes sense. But there is nothing in Leviticus 19:18 about using powerful weapons to kill people. Nothing.

Leviticus 19:18 has a sentence before "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This sentence is even more strongly against using powerful weapons to protect oneself. The first part of the verse in Leviticus 19:18 is as follows: “Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.” The verse also has a stunning ending: “I am the L-RD.” Thus, Leviticus 19:18 isn’t just any verse for a Bible-believing Christian. Leviticus 19:18 is a verse in which we listen to the word of G-d. This makes Leviticus 19:18 a very important verse for the Bible-believing Christian community.

Here it is in its entirety:

Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the L-rd.

***

This brings us to a very big difference between The Golden Rule and Leviticus 19:18. One uses the word "other" while the latter uses the word "neighbor."

Is there a meaning of the word “other” which would lend credence to the Christian perspective of using powerful weapons to kill an “other?”

The word in Hebrew which is commonly translated as neighbor is "rei-acha." Not surprisingly, the meaning of the word "rei-acha" is not the word you would use to refer to your neighbors in Modern Hebrew. It is a word which you might use to refer to "the children of your people." 

In a society like ours, who are the children of our people? Who are the people about whom we should concern ourselves?

Do we consider all Americans to be “our people?”

or

Do we only consider people of similar religious backgrounds to be “our people?”

This is important because we must ask the Christian fundamentalist community exactly who they are protecting themselves from?

I have heard more than one gun enthusiast say they are protecting themselves against “the bad people.”

This to me seems to be the “NEW” meaning for the Golden Rule. In other words, the fundamentalist Christian community is protecting themselves from “OTHERS.”

Let’s read the Golden Rule one more time:

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

And here's the Golden Rule as it is interpreted by the Fundamentalist Christian community:

Kill others as you would have wanted to be protected.

This doesn’t sound like good religious philosophy to me. It sounds like a bunch of really scared people who are taking the law into their own hands. It seems they are terrified that our violent culture will come for them next—that we will reap as we have sown.

But saying that G-d is on your side does not make it so.

And making our culture more violent doesn’t solve anything.

So we must work together to get rid of the guns and to search out the sources of violence in our society. We are all in this together.

More Bad Theology from the Far Right

I have some strong observations to make on the public debate surrounding gun control. Before I make those observations I would like to share an essay and a video from Dr. Anthea Butler, a religious studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Butler, as usual, has stated her position in a thoughtful manner. I like listening to what Dr Butler has to say, even if I don't agree with everything she has to say. Thank you Dr. Butler!

Here is a link to Dr. Butler's comments. This link goes to an article at Religion Dispatches, December 19, 2012.

We Need to Realize When We Are Being Bullies

Here is a link to a conversation between a CNN reporter and Haroon Moghul:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2012/09/23/exp-haroon-moghul.cnn

Haroon Moghul is somebody to listen to. He is saying that Americans don't understand Islam very well. He is also saying that the stupid video that was put out contained lies and was an offensive depiction of the Prophet Muhammed.

So instead of saying that we can't believe how violent Muslims are, and how we can't believe that they "just don't understand free speech," we need to be saying we are sorry. An offensive video was made and even though we didn't put the video out, we condemn it and we are sorry that it caused so much pain.

There is such a thing as escalation and there is such a thing as deescalation and what we have been doing with our insistence on condemning all Muslims is escalation.

We are big enough to deescalate this. We are big enough to say we are sorry. We need to stop condemning the actions of others and take responsibility for our actions.

No more stupid videos. No more depictions of the Prophet Muhammed. We invite Muslims to the table. We invite Muslims to participate. This is deescalation. This is good action.

Somebody Else is Saying that Gay Marriage is A First Amendment Right!

I found a utube video with a guy who is saying exactly what I am saying. It is very exciting to see this! Gay marriage is a First Amendment issue because it is my right as a gay person to live in freedom from religious law and the people who are opposing gay marriage are doing so because it is against their religion. Take a look at this guy's video. He wants you to tell him what you think. I would also like you to leave a comment.

Freedom of Religion and Gay Marriage

I Applaud Bishop Desmond Tutu

I applaud people standing up for what they believe in. I applaud clergy people taking a stand. I'd like to see more people standing up just like Bishop Desmond Tutu. Thank you!

                                                                  This picture is taken from The Guardian website with the article I have linked to.

                          Why Bishop Tutu Says He Had No Choice But To Spurn Tony Blair

Equal Access for All

Marian Wright Edelman has written an excellent essay on equal access for everyone and how we do not have equal access in America.

                                                                                                 Picture from the Huffington Post Website

Here's the link to her article: Marian Wright Edelman: The Racial Divide: Will It Widen Or Close?

We simply have to work together in this society to insure that all of us can live the life we are supposed to live and all of us can nurture and share our gifts with society. We are cutting ourselves off at the roots by cutting off most people in our society.