More Christian Privilege?
The entire Kim Davis saga and her perceived right to invoke religious law within the government due to the fact that religious conscience objection should be permitted has got me thinking about why is there proposed religious freedom and conscience amendments (the “First Amendment Defense Act” is currently one proposed). However, why does “moral religious conviction” receive special consideration above the conscience moral objections of anyone else? As I analyze this more and more, it is kind of implying other people (i.e. atheists or humanists) cannot have strong convictions and if they do, they cannot simply shout “religious freedom” and do as they wish. Essentially, the source of a conviction matters in terms of importance and non-religious convictions may not be equal to religious ones (?).
For example, in the media, conservatives are comparing California’s action of the brief period (before it was legal) when San Francisco issued same sex marriage licenses. Well, the mayor at the time was following a conviction that he thought it was the “right” thing to do to treat others as equal; however, he was ordered by the court to stop and he did. So, essentially, this was a “moral” conviction of Gavin Newsome, the mayor of SF at the time. However, his moral conviction is not a “special” conviction. He had to still follow the law and same sex marriage still had to be legally sanctioned, there was no exemption for him as a mayor to invoke his morals to treat others equally…he had to wait on the law to adjust, which it eventually did, but if it wouldn’t have, he would still have had to follow it regardless of his personal convictions or beliefs.
If one can invoke conscience objections to laws, why does it have to be a religious objection? Isn’t a moral objection a moral objection?
Anyway, just some thoughts I had this morning.
Actually it can be any objection, moral or not. It’s all malleable and arbitrary. In the case of “just any” objection, if you can get enough people to agree with you you can change the law. I think the main difference though is that religious nuts of any stripe believe their god-given law trumps any man made law and therefore they are justified differently from any other non-religious objections.
Two things interacting here. One, is the idea that since, according to Bible believers, homosexuality has been wrong for a long time, that somehow makes it actually wrong. They are ignoring that it wasn’t wrong to the homosexuals themselves and that even the interpretation of the Bible has changed, but put that aside and try to see it their way for a moment.
Now, you have the changes to the laws that were sweeping from State to State like nothing before and then SCOTUS comes along and barely deliberates the issue and it’s over. The religious argument is the only thing they have left, and they know they might as well be trying to claim that belief in transubstantiation is a requirement for office. They don’t have a moral stand like abortion does. They have nowhere to go but back to their Bible interpretations, and they have a lot of mainstream Christians that don’t agree with that.
They have no choice but appeal to the moral authority of God.
Because Jesus says so. And Jesus was killed by the homo Romans. Then he made Death his bitch, killed all the sorcerers in Europe, crossed the Atlantic on a bald eagle, founded the United States of god-damn-awesome America, killed most of the New World sorcerers so God-fearing hetero white people would have more places to play football, and finally created AIDS to kill the rest of the world’s homos and sorcerers. So America! That’s why! And if you don’t like it, you’re a God-hating, commie, pinko, homo sorcerer.
Because Jesus says so. And Jesus was killed by the homo Romans. Then he made Death his bitch, killed all the sorcerers in Europe, crossed the Atlantic on a bald eagle, founded the United States of god-damn-awesome America, killed most of the New World sorcerers so God-fearing hetero white people would have more places to play football, and finally created AIDS to kill the rest of the world's homos and sorcerers. So America! That's why! And if you don't like it, you're a God-hating, commie, pinko, homo sorcerer.Yes, it's beginning to make sense now! Lois