{"id":2378,"date":"2008-11-29T05:54:19","date_gmt":"2008-11-29T10:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=2378"},"modified":"2009-02-18T19:56:44","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T00:56:44","slug":"get-your-deeply-held-religious-beliefs-off-my-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/2378","title":{"rendered":"Get Your Deeply Held Religious Beliefs Off My Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/em>, 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.<\/span><\/em>  That applies to Christian nationalism as well. 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, 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.\n<\/p>\n

\n

When Are Your "Privately Held Religious Beliefs" Not So Private Anymore?<\/h3>\n

Posted by Dan Savage \t on Wed, Nov 26<\/span> at 10:44 AM<\/span><\/h4>\n
\n

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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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<\/strong>; and civil marriage rights for same-sex couples did not infringe upon the religious freedom of Mormons, devout or otherwise.<\/p>\n

Bill Condon, the gay guy who directed Dreamgirls<\/em>, attempted to get Raddon’s back: "Someone has lost his job and possibly his livelihood because of privately held religious beliefs<\/strong>."<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

"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."<\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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. \n<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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?\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[22,116,16,90,78,12],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-fighting-back","tag-joseph-smiths-talking-hat","tag-marriage","tag-the-human-gutter","tag-the-struggle-for-america","tag-the-struggle-for-our-lives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}