Get Your Deeply Held Religious Beliefs Off My Back
Of course, while I was away in a private little world where everyone gets along, the fallout from Proposition H8 continued in full force. As it should. A lot of people are claiming they have a duty to strip gay people of their civil rights because their religion tells them to. But they had another duty, as Americans, to stand up for liberty and justice for all. We have seen time and again in this KulturKrieg, how religion is used as a wedge, to separate Americans from one another, for the benefit of the haters of the American dream. Charles De Gaulle once said Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. That applies to Christian nationalism as well.
Freedom of religion doesn’t mean you’re free to impose your religious beliefs on others. Freedom of religion means even the heathens in the church across the street have rights too. Freedom of religion means that even the people your religion brands as pariahs have rights too. Freedom of religion means we are all equals in the eyes of the law. That is how the religious outcasts of Europe once conceived of the American land they fled to, when their own beliefs were being persecuted back in the old countries. A nation of religious non-conformists, dissidents, and outcasts, cannot hold together when one group demands that its "deeply held religious beliefs" have the force of law over others. The haters of America are well aware of this.
You can be a Mormon when you pray in a Mormon church. You can be a Catholic when you pray in a Catholic church. You can be a Baptist when you pray in a Baptist church. When you walk into a voting booth, you must be an American. The American prayer is for liberty and justice for All, or America simply cannot be anymore. If that offends your deeply held religious beliefs, find another country. Because what you want to live in is a theocracy, not a democracy. You can be a Christian, or a Mormon, first, before anything else, anywhere and everywhere but in the voting booth. In the voting booth, you must be an American first.
When Are Your "Privately Held Religious Beliefs" Not So Private Anymore?
Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Nov 26 at 10:44 AM
When you donate $1500 to a political campaign to strip other people — people who are not your co-religionists — of their civil rights. Richard Raddon is, or was, the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. All hell broke loose after it emerged that Raddon, who is Mormon, had donated $1500 to the "Yes on 8" campaign. The LA Times:
After Raddon’s contribution was made public online, Film Independent was swamped with criticism from "No on 8" supporters both inside and outside the organization. Within days, Raddon offered to step down as festival director, but the board, which includes Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Lionsgate President Tom Ortenberg and Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice, gave him a unanimous vote of confidence.
Yet, the anti-Raddon bile continued to bubble in the blogosphere, and according to one Film Independent board member, "No on 8" supporters also berated Raddon personally via phone calls and e-mails. The recriminations ultimately proved too much, and when Raddon offered to resign again, this time the board accepted.
Raddon released a statement that said, in part, "I have always held the belief that all people, no matter race, religion or sexual orientation, are entitled to equal rights." Except for when they’re not — and Raddon also believes that the religious should wield a veto over other peoples’ civil rights. He goes on to whine about being a "devout and faithful Mormon," and about how his contribution to "Yes on 8" was a "private matter." Uh… no. A donation to a political campaign is a public matter; and civil marriage rights for same-sex couples did not infringe upon the religious freedom of Mormons, devout or otherwise.
Bill Condon, the gay guy who directed Dreamgirls, attempted to get Raddon’s back: "Someone has lost his job and possibly his livelihood because of privately held religious beliefs."
No. No. No. Raddon lost his job due to criticism of his public political actions, not his private religious beliefs, and his public political actions were a part of the public record. If Raddon wanted to go to church and pray his little heart out against same-sex marriage, or proselytize on street corners against gay marriage, or counsel gay men to leave their husbands and marry nice Mormon girls instead, that could be viewed as an expression of his "privately held religious beliefs." Instead he helped fund a political campaign to strip a vulnerable minority group of its civil rights.
"Millions of Californians definitely lost their civil rights," says John Aravosis. "But I’m not hearing a lot of concern about any of those victims, only sympathy for their attacker. When you use the power of the state to rip away my civil rights, and force me to live by your ‘values,’ you are no longer practicing your religion. You’re practicing politics."
In the wake of Prop 8 millions of gays and lesbians all over the country have decided that we’re no longer going to play by the old rules. We’re not going to let people kick our teeth down our throats and then run and hide behind "Nothing personal — just my private religious beliefs!" That game’s over.
That game’s over. When you advocate for this or that as a matter of law you are not practicing religion…you are practicing politics. And when you attempt to use the laws all Americans must live by, to bash your neighbor and elevate yourself, you are not a patriot but a nationalist.
This is the second time I have seen in the news since Proposition H8 passed, a Mormon who while working side by side with other gay people, first in the theater, and now in films, gave serious money to cut their ring fingers off. One-thousand, five hundred dollars is not pocket change. You just don’t give that kind of money to something like this, simply because your church tells you to donate. That’s the kind of money you give, when you really, really want the measure to pass. This was not simply religious obedience on his part. He was serious about it. That money became a knife in the back of every gay person he knows, every gay person he ever worked with, every gay person whose creative talent and energy gave him the means to earn a living.
What you have to understand about this fight, is that it isn’t about marriage. It’s about love. Gay people, must not be allowed to love and be loved in return. They must not be allowed to have that intimate other in their lives, that companion of the heart to walk through the years with, side-by-side, soul to soul. To allow us to marry is to aknowledge that homosexuals love, and that cannot be. But when you take the possibility of love away from someone, what is left? What is left, to council peace, compassion and sympathy when rage fills the empty space where love once lived?
Do they really think, at long last, that we are not human? What Raddon got was precisely what he asked for. A world without love, without compassion, without sympathy, without peace. Congratulations Richard. Mission Accomplished.
November 29th, 2008 at 9:39 am
<i>"Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don’t confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage." </i> Walter Fauntroy–Former DC Delegate to CongressFounding member of the Congressional Black CaucusCoordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on DC
November 29th, 2008 at 11:26 am
opine-editorials has a history of blog invasion I will absolutely not tolerate here on my blog. In light of that, I’ll be moderating every comment you leave here, for as long as you choose to leave them. When I see the same pattern of behavior from you folks that I have seen elsewhere, I’ll simply start picking and choosing which comments I’ll allow to appear and respond to. Just so you know.
> Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue…
Bullshit. Conservatives are making it an issue. And they’re doing it to drive the hate vote to the polls. And jackasses like Fauntroy are their useful idiots. Here he shakes hands with right wing racists, so he can put his thumb in the eyes of gay people. Not all of whom, he seems not to be able to understand, are white.
> …it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers…
Fathers…but not mothers? Look at this. Really look at it. Not "guaranteeing children mothers and fathers", but "fathers". Period. He didn’t even think when he said that to include the other half of a heterosexual marriage. That half isn’t important to him. He doesn’t even see it. Look at it. Really look at it. Here’s the root, the stinking rotten core of the anti-gay agenda. It isn’t about preserving a "universal human institution"…it’s about the preservation of male dominance over women. Fauntroy, right there in front of our eyes, all but admits it.
Richard Rodriguez in Salon this week, addressed one big reason why conservative American churches are so afraid of same sex marriage…
He goes on to say…
Some folks just really need their scapegoats, someone else to blame for all their own pathetic failures of moral character. Fauntroy being one of them. Fauntroy is villifying gay people, cowering from behind the very institution he is pretending to defend, half of the people in which he can’t even see, and clearly does not care one whit about.
> …and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as
> personally fruitful sexual relationship.
Same sex couples contribute to their communities too. Fauntroy would know that, if he ever bothered to look at our lives from somewhere else besides his pathetic bar stool conceits. And sexual intimacy between loving, devoted same sex couples is just as fulfilling to them, as to opposite sex couples. Fauntroy would know that too, if he could see the people for the homosexuals. But he can’t see the lives of gay people any better then he can see the lives of women. Look at this:
> Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled
> toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set
> in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution:
> There are no differences between men and women that matter…
This is the misogynist’s view of the sexual revolution. Suddenly, women didn’t have to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen to have meaningful lives. Suddenly they could have careers of their own, reach for their own dreams, meet men on equal footing in the workplace and in the home. And nightmare of nightmares, suddenly women could own their own bodies, instead of being owned by men. Suddenly women could enjoy sex for its own sake just like men do, delight in the beauty and sensuality of their own bodies as women, not just as objects of male lust. For generations little girls reaching womanhood were told that they weren’t supposed to enjoy sex, but give themselves over to men for the sole purpose of bearing their children. In some parts of the world, where Conservative religious cultures reign supreme, young women routinely have their genitals mutilated so they cannot experience sexual pleasure. This is considered righteous.
If all the sexual revolution did was make it easier for boys to get laid then the conservative churches would be singing it’s praises today. But it did the unforgivable…it liberated women too. The differences between men and women that Fauntroy laments the passing of, is the one where women were supposed to know their place. You know…like black people were supposed to, once upon a time…
> …marriage has nothing to do with procreation…
And neither do anti same sex marriage amendments. You will Never see the gay haters trying to get amendments passed that require fertility as a precondition of marriage. They don’t give a good goddamn about the procreation of children, only the procreation of their cheapshit hatreds, and their entitled status as heterosexual males.
> …children do not really need mothers and fathers…
Children need to be loved. But you will never hear the likes of Fauntroy saying that love is the most important part of a marriage, because it is the one thing they are incapable of bringing to it. When all you can see in a marriage is about male dominance over women, you cannot let love for your spouse be a part of marriage, let alone love for your children. And it shows. The so-called bible belt has more incidence of spouse abuse and child abuse then any other part of the country, particularly the parts that reliably vote liberal. Oh…along with the highest incidence of illiteracy and teenage pregnancy and STDs. Fat lot of good all this ostentatious piety is doing children. I’ll not endure lectures on how bad same sex marriage is for children from louts who have never shown anything like the interest in improving the lives of children that they have in denegrating the lives of gay people.
> …the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children.
Love. Love is good for children. Try to wrap your head around that concept. Love. Love. You want to know why the so-called bible belt has the highest rates of divorce? It’s because the pulpits down there keep preaching that marriage is about opposte sex genitals.
A marriage is about love, or it is about nothing. A marriage is between equals, who love, honor and cherish one another. It is not the master-slave relationship between men and women Fauntroy wishes it to be. The problem with same sex marriage isn’t that it makes gender irrelevant, but that it makes it unabiguously clear that the two people united under its wings are Equals. Fauntroy and his kind would rather burn the chapel down, then admit that women are people too, let alone that they are their equal half of a human race. You want to know why so many marriages end in divorce, here it is laughing in your face. This isn’t rocket science. If you don’t respect your other half going into in a marriage, don’t be surprised when it ends up in divorce court. It is not the people who are insisting that the bedrock of marriage is love who are destroying marriage.
> What happens in my heart is that I know the difference.
Maybe someday his heart will know what it is to have a conscience. Then he won’t have to feel his world is being threatened by people in love.
> Don’t confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family
> destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage.
You can suppose here, that gay black Americans are not his people too. Gay black Americans like Bayard Rustin, who organized the 1963 March On Washington. Fauntroy just spent the better part of a paragraph spitting on his grave, and putting a knife into the heart of every gay African-American who ever walked the American soil, and who get spit on in one instant by white racists for being black, and then in the next instant get spit on for being gay by other black people. Aren’t the gay sons and daughters of the slaves whose hands built this nation too, with their blood and tears his people also? Apparently not. And…heterosexual black women..? He seems to have difficulty remembering that they’re one half of an opposite sex marriage. Just who the fuck Are his people anyway? Near as I can see from this, the only ones he considers His People are black heterosexual males.
There’s the problem. It’s not the difference he thinks he sees between men and women, or between this family and that. It’s that his heart is too goddamned small to see anything but himself in a mirror.
Yours too…apparently. Well I reckon that explains why marriage can’t be about love.