Topic Tuesday #94 2014/05/06 "Equality?"

As I pay attention more and more to the news now that I have a show that talks about it every week, I find some disturbing recurring themes. There is always violence, that has been pretty steady, with the whole, "If it bleeds it leads" mantra of news agencies around the United States. Today in the US, faith based matters dominate. Don't think so? I can see why you may think otherwise, as on the surface they seem to be other issues. Dig a little deeper, and you get to why it is an issue in the first place.

Take marriage equality, or "gay marriage" as an example. Is this a civil rights issue? Most likely. Why in the 21st century would such civil or even human rights be impinged upon? Religion. It's plain and simple. Countless articles and news stories, and the only ones causing a fuss about letting two humans marry each other, are those with a religious stake in the game. They are losing by the way, and I think that's a good thing for humanity. Eventually those that oppose gay marriage and homosexuality will fall to the side, like their predecessors did for slavery and the rights of minorities and supporters of women's suffrage (though equal pay has a ways to go...).

Take abortion, or right to life, or choose life, or any other number of phrases used to get legislation passed... If one looks at the issue from the position of medical science, there is no real question on the issue. It should remain in the hands of those trained to deal with these matters safely... Rather than those that look at it from the position of life beginning at conception or EVEN BEFORE conception in some cases... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/az-abortion-bills-arizona-gestational-age_n_1415715.html Now we can get into how cells divide and what constitues a person, and when the rights of the mother are somehow less than the child she bears... But we don't need to. Really we don't. You can comment if you like and I encourage you to do so, but be very honest with your arguments.

While on abortion, we also have Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, sueing to avoid having to pay for the contraceptive mandates within the Affordable Health Care Act. They are claiming that their publicly traded companies have a religious preference... When the entire reason to incorporate it to remove liability from an individual and make the company it's own legal entity. Now this legal entity has a religious preference. Funny how we can't imprison a company, or execute it for a crime, or even talk directly to it... Yet it holds, funny enough, the same religious views as its board of directors... So it can claim that based on its religious objection, it can withhold government mandated care from it's employees, effectively pushing their views upon others. 

If they open that door wide enough... There are monsters that lurk there. The monsters of other peoples faiths and preferences and then... laws.

Here is the problem... The separation of church and state as inferred by the 1st amendment's establishment clause,  no matter how you look at it, is there to prevent religions from hurting the rights of others by playing favorites. It's simple. Person 1 believes X. Person 2 believes Y. If you make a law that is based solely off of belief X you can infringe upon the beliefs of Person 2, because they believe Y, not X. The only way for both X and Y to co-exist peacefully is for there not to be any laws based on beliefs... A separation of law and faith; between church and state. It keep is fair. 

Now we had a recent result from the US Supreme court that narrowly sided (5 to 4) that it was permissible to have prayer before civic/government functions. All I can hope, is that the invocations/prayers come in from all faiths, equally. History tells us this won't happen and that such displays drive wedges in communities because of differing faiths. Bigotry... Faith Based Bigotry is still alive and well. And it needs to stop...