I have had an issue over the past few years (since I opened my eyes to the world around me) with the involvement of religious views in our legislation.
More and more we are seeing religious views and moralities being pushed through and turned into the laws we must all live by and it is frankly beginning to make me sick. One of the founding ideals of the United States is the separation of Church and State.
To me and the founding fathers (and many of the free-thinkers of the US) this means that our government shall not institute any form of "State Religion" nor shall it infringe on the rights of religious doctrine. In layman's terms it is stating that our government will not take on religious views and enforce them as laws of the land by creating a "State Religion" and in turn they will allow religions to operate freely with out interference (ie. outlawing a religion such as Mormonism, Wicca, etc.). Granted some practices of a religion that act direct conflict with base laws (ie, human sacrifice, child exploitation, animal cruelty, etc.) are granted a reasonable exception from this and deemed unacceptable.
The problem is that there are now religious views that are now being pushed through and turned into law. A perfect example is the official outlawing of gay marriage. It directly infringes on one of the core values this country was founded on.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~US Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
It doesn't have an exception anywhere that states "except gays". The bases for the argument against it is that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of god. Now I am not here to argue who is right (saving that for another blog) I am simply asserting that it is a religious view that has now been put into law. If Christianity is not the "State Religion" then why are we enforcing their doctrine?
More and more we are seeing the same thing popping up. Schools are being forced by the state to teach Creationism; women are jailed for abortions because a fetus has a soul at the time of conception; our children are forced to pledge heir allegiance to not only our country but to God. There is even a push to have the 3rd law of thermodynamics (I know this isn't legislation) repealed because it is counter to Christian beliefs.
How would Christians feel if other religious groups made their precepts into laws. What if the US outlawed pork? What if everyone was required to wear Mormon "garments", or we outlawed blood transfusion?
As much as these people like to use the slippery slope fallacy to support their arguments (Arguments against gay marriage) I think I will throw out my own (I know arguing from a fallacy is a failed argument before it starts but meh).
If we continue too allow Christians to dictate our laws and social morals how soon until be begin burning witches? (King James)Exodus 22:18, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Bottom line is that Christians would have a hissy fit if the US government stepped in and started dictating to them their practices so in turn they have no right to dictate to the government how they should operate. A Muslim has no right to tell a Jew how to live and a Wiccan has no right to dictate how a Mormon should practice, but for some reason we as Americans are allowing Christians to dictate to us all how we should live.
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