Friday, June 26, 2015

Exposing religion for what it is

Some time ago I wrote in this very space that the Supreme Court had no choice but to recognize same-sex marriage across the nation. Once the first state recognized it, the Equal Protection Clause left no wiggle room.

Not ones to let something as fundamental as the law get in the way, our wingnut governor, Greg Abbott, and wingnut attorney general, Ken Paxton, have announced that they think the Supreme Court got it all wrong. According to these two paragons of ignorance, the Court's decision infringes upon the religious freedom of all the hate-spewing, right-wing, bible-thumpers who are desperately holding on to an image of America that never really existed.

And I, for one, am glad they are all trumpeting the religious freedom angle because this argument shows, once and for all, what religion is really all about.

Gov. Abbott (who sometimes makes Rick Perry look like a scholar and a statesman) sent out letters to the heads of state agencies hours after the Supremes ruled, that it's okay to withhold benefits from same-sex couples if such an arrangement offends the religious sensibilities of the agency heads. What? Has Greg Abbott never read the Fourteenth Amendment? Has he never heard of Loving v. Virginia?

Just what part of every citizen being guaranteed equal rights under the law does he not understand?

Religion has been used throughout history to justify oppression and repression. It has been used to justify the stealing of natural resources. It has been used to justify slavery and Jim Crow. Invoking it to defend discrimination in the choice of marriage partners is the latest use of the "opiate of the masses" to justify the second class treatment of a group of people. So far as I know, the only purpose of religion is to indoctrinate the masses into believing that their state of repression is willed by god and that they will get their equality once they are dead.

And to think that millions of people have fallen for that. Just think about it. When you're dead, you're fucking dead and it doesn't matter whether there's equality or not.

At some point Abbott and his minions will get slapped down and the State of Texas will be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. Until then I can sit back and enjoy watching the curtain getting pulled back on religion and exposing it as the con that it is.

8 comments:

Mark said...

No sir. You are wrong. Religion is not a con, it is faith. I have no way to prove that God exists. Faith that a man named Jesus Christ once walked the earth as the son of God. Faith that Jesus will return ti Earth and bring his believers to their eternal home. I pray that you too find this faith before that day.

As far a homosexual marriage goes, I do not care if two people that I do not know ans I will never meet want to get married. But when a person of Christian faith is forced into providing a service to a homosexual couple or face legal consequences, that is when I am concerned.

Mark said...

...."Once the first state recognized it, the Equal Protection Clause left no wiggle room". With this statement what you are saying is that if one state decided that every citizen of that state is entitled to free popcorn, every state would have to furnish popcorn.

I do not care if homosexuals get married. It is simply not my business. What I do care about is the Supreme Court overstepping their bounds. What happened to the Tenth Amendment?

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".

The matter of marriage is found nowhere in the Constitution, therefore the issue is left to the states to determine if homosexual marriage is legal in their respective state.

Members of SCOTUS who voted for homosexual marriage in every state overstepped their legal bounds and ruled according to their personal choice, not the Constitution.

Paul B. Kennedy said...

Mark, we are all entitled to our silly superstitious beliefs. I will just leave you with the fact that more people have been killed in the name of Jesus (or whatever god you wish to substitute) than in any other cause. Your religion has been used to justify everything from segregation, apartheid, murder, torture and war.

Paul B. Kennedy said...

Let me see if I can help you through your shroud of ignorance on this issue.

Once upon a time it was illegal in some states for a black person to marry a white person. Such a law violated both parties' right to equal protection under the law because it meant that their marriage would not be recognized in every state like a marriage between two persons of the same "race." That deprived the couple of the benefits a married couple might receive as far as taxes, health insurance, inheritance and the like.

That law was struck down in Loving v. Virginia which said denying a couple the right to marry (and the benefits from being married) violated the 14th Amendment.

Once a state - any state - recognized same-sex marriage, those marriages were going to be recognized in all 50 states (at some point). The logic is the same as in the Loving case.

Just imagine if Louisiana decided not to recognize marriages from Texas. Under your "logic" that would be their right to do so under the 10th Amendment. But now you have deprived any couple married in Texas the benefits of being married in Louisiana. Is that even remotely equitable?

It is a never ending source of amusement for me to see you and your ilk running to the bible anytime y'all want to justify some form of discrimination.

Lee said...

I fail to understand someone's need to or interest in micromanaging a relationship between consenting adults to which they are not a member of.

Anonymous said...

I think Governmevt should get out of the marriage business altogether.

Mark said...

Apparently my response to your response did not go through. I'm sure that you are not so hypocritical as to not publish it. You were going to get me through my "shroud of ignorance", but only created another argument.

I mentioned in my unpublished post your argument that since one state passed legislation that gave homosexuals the right to marry in that particular state, it was only a matter of time before all states had to recognize that same right in their respective states. That was the gist of your statement. I countered that since Texas recognized a Texan's RIGHT to carry a concealed weapon, and now have the RIGHT to open carry, why are the rest of the states not forced to follow Texas' lead. As I asked earlier, it cannot apply only to homosexual marriage, can it?

Marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution, but the RIGHT to keep and bear arms is.

Rick Summerson said...

I am shocked to see someone in business actually have the cahonies to say something negative about religion. It can be pretty lonely for me being an atheist and to see someone who could actually potentially alienate some clients by admitting their true feelings about religion warms my soul. Except I don't believe in a soul, but you get the sentiment.

Rick Summerson