The freedom to marry the person you love is not an affront to the freedom of religion.
Gay people have hid in the shadows for centuries. Laws based on religions have condemned us without trial. Christianity, one of those religions, is based on a man called Jesus who never had a bad word to say about gay people. He had a lot to say about the religious leaders and their hypocrisy in that era, but he never went around criticizing sinners, or those who were considered sinners by the religious leaders of that time, which were the Scribes and Pharisees.
Now, after many centuries hiding in the shadows, we finally live in a nation and in an enlightened age that those who are gay can come out of their proverbial closet and join the rest of society, with the same civil rights afforded heterosexuals.
However, it would seem, according to certain religious leaders and those who follow those leaders, gay people are part of some form of private organization where we recruit others, especially children and teens, to join our ranks. They believe we have a political agenda to force our lifestyle onto everyone else. There is even a proposed law in California that would punish gay people with death by shooting them in the head for such so-called recruiting.
In response to this so-called agenda, state governments, buoyed by Christian fundamentalist, have created a number of laws to block LGBT members from marriage, even though federal courts in large numbers, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have sided with the LGBT community, that such laws are unconstitutional. Now there are laws to not only block gay people from getting married but also to allow discrimination by businesses, under the guise of religious freedom to refuse service to anyone they deem to be LGBT. Indiana’s governor Mike Pence just signed the most recent religious freedom legislation into law.
It is a bit ironic to use the word “freedom” in a law that in fact takes freedom away from a minority of American citizens. Would not allowing a business the right to discriminate against gay people on the bases of religious beliefs, not also give business owners the right to discriminate against other minorities, such as Muslim business owners to discriminate against women who were not dressed in a burqa, or even an atheist business owner against anyone who is religious? In reality, a religious freedom law can be used to discriminate against anyone the business owner wishes to discriminate against, based solely on their religious beliefs.
Christianity takes the biggest hit here. The reason is that those who are not Christians, though they belong to another religion or because they are nonbelievers, Christianity is seen as a harsh religion that seeks to punish those who do not adhere to its strict doctrine – move over Sharia Law, Leviticus Law is here instead. This is a fact, which is easily proven by simply visiting popular media sites where news articles are published concerning the outbreak of religious freedom laws. Atheist are having a field day because what many of them have been saying all along; that Christians are a bunch of bully extremist who wish to force their religious beliefs on everyone, has proved itself within these laws designed to discriminate against LGBT members.
Christianity also fails greatly because the very people that Christ commissioned his followers to reach out to; sinners, now see a religion that is not looking to show a loving God who sent his son to die for their sins, but instead, a God of judgement that wants to punish with eternal hell anyone who disobeys his laws.
Lastly, though those who would impose such laws upon us may not care it hurts gay people, and perhaps wishes it to, as it does for many. For a long time now, LGBT members who grow up in religious fundamentalist homes have been outcast, their parents sometimes kicking them out and disowning them. For those who live in the closet because of fear to come out to their religious families, a load of guilt has been piled on them for something they can do nothing to change. That is because no matter how many times some say being gay is just a lifestyle; it does not make it so.
Being gay is not a choice; no more than being heterosexual is a choice. Homosexuality is a common occurrence in all species, though the human species is the only species that condemns those who are.
The LGBT community has not set out to make the Christian community our enemy. Many of us come from religious backgrounds, though they are Christian Jewish, Muslim, etc. We did not ask to be brought up in religious homes no more than we asked to be gay.
When a teen grows into their sexuality, as a normal occurrence of puberty, and discovers they are gay, if they belong to a strict religious family, it is as though a nightmare has just begun. They know right off that they cannot go to their parents and they cannot go their pastors or other religious leaders, because to do so would be to face rejection and very possibly to become an outcast. Guilt and shame takes over their lives and for many, suicide sometimes seems like the only answer. I know this well as I have been down this road many years ago.
Now there is hope for any child who grows up in a religious family and who discovers they are gay or transgender, as there is a possibility for a normal life, to marry the person you fall in love with. Yet the very same religious people, who heaped piles of guilt upon them growing up, now would stand in their way of living a fulfilled life. Now, those who claimed to represent the Jesus they learned about in Sunday school, who taught them about loving their neighbor and who also loves them so much, is telling them that not only are they rejected, but also they should be put to death for something that they cannot change.
Christians or even Muslims or Jews who have espoused such hatred and who push such laws upon gay people, should realize, this is not some foreign group of people who have joined to force their agenda upon everyone else. No, when it comes to forcing an agenda upon everyone, we will leave that to the religious extremist, though it is Christian, Muslim or Jewish extremist. It is all the same, Sharia Law or Leviticus Law, it is about taking freedom away, not granting it, as some would say with the creation of such religious freedom laws.
Gay people are not the enemy of Christians, Muslims or Jews, but we are their family.