Gay People's Religious Freedom Matters Too

A group of religious right wingers, those who use right wing politics and wrap it around spirituality or theology are continuing to needlessly wage war on gay people who want nothing more than the same religious liberty they enjoy. Now there is nothing wrong with having faith or a set a beliefs, that is not the issue. But unfortunately a few renegade fearmongers have taken to write a joint statement opposing gay marriage because having my government protecting me and my partner's rights and freedoms will somehow fringe upon their religious liberty. That is nonsense.

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The statement proclaims that its trying to protect everybody's religious liberty, which is a total lie being that you don't have to be religious to oppose gay marriage and that gay marriage to many of us in the gay community is a religious and/or spiritual rite of passage before the eyes of God. What these religious leaders want to do is take their feud over this issue to the government sphere and use my government to tell me through force and denial that I am not fully capable of consenting to marry a man based upon my religious and/or spiritual convictions and gender.

Has my government been trying to outlaw Christian marriage? The answer is an obvious and resounding NO. But my government has outlawed gay Christian marriage because of a difference of opinion. My government has now taken sides on this issue instead of protecting the rights of every citizen - it has decided to give others with certain beliefs and scriptural understanding a higher and more moral high ground by imposing their scriptural view on me.

Fine, we can agree to disagree on gay marriage, we can be wrong or right on this issue... but I think I have a right to be wrong and to do something that may not be pleasing to those with a different view point. I have religious liberty too, and I would like my government not to take sides and to give both sides an equal opportunity to the same basic fundamental rights and constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion for ALL people including us gays. What the religious right is doing, and what this document affirms, at least to me, is that they want the upper-hand by using my government to win the theological fight and argument. They are essentially crying to mommy and making her punish me for no reason and then rewarding them with privileges and yet they still claim to be the victim.

Yes I do believe in religious freedom, so much so that I have decided to respond to this statement. I do believe that these men have a right to preach and believe anything they want from the Bible, that is religious freedom; but using my government to tell me that my marriage is worth crap is not religious freedom, its outright religious bigotry.

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