It's about time somebody said it. To all those Americans out there who are against gay marriage: nobody is infringing on your religious rights.
That's right... I said it.
Since the supreme court decided that gay marriage (now just marriage) would be legal through all the land, people have been sounding off all over social media.
Some positively, some negatively, all opinionated.
You've seen your angry old uncle share that article on Facebook about "Satanic Gay Marriage," and then you've seen that extremely liberal cousin from California post a picture of men waving a rainbow flag a la Iwo Jima.
Chances are your opinion falls somewhere in between. Maybe you shared an opinion article on the topic you found interesting. Maybe you just slapped a rainbow filter on your profile picture and called it a day. Maybe you don't think politics belong on social media. Regardless, you probably have an opinion.
I like opinions. Opinions are good. They mean you're thinking (usually), and they also mean you care about something, but when I see things like this on social media it makes me just a little bit sick.
Here are several examples commented on an NBC News article.
We've got every kind of bigotry here. Bigot-palooza! Saying that homosexuality must be forgiven by God, comparing gay marriage to bestiality, saying gay marriage violates constitutional rights, telling the LGBTQ community to stop forcing their lifestyles on America, and of course, lots and lots of typos.
But, let's get down to the real issue here. Many who complain about same sex marriage say that it somehow violates their religious rights. Because same sex couples can now enjoy the same benefits that heterosexual couples do in the eyes of the law, now somehow the United States is in a "battle against religion."
The fact of the matter is that based on our country's founding document, the Constitution, there is an inherent division between religious beliefs and our set of national laws.
Let's take a quick basic U.S. government lesson. Based on the Establishment Clause in our First Amendment, the government cannot make a law “respecting an establishment of religion.” Now, this was initially in place to prevent our government from having a state religion (like Great Britain had), but in today's language it means the government does not have the right to create a law based on a religious groups' beliefs.
This is why prayers are not allowed in public schools, why you're not jailed for your specific religious beliefs, and why same sex marriage is now legal in all 50 of these wonderful United States.
It's not against your religious right for the state to legally marry two individuals of the same sex. It's that simple. Just because it gives you a weird feeling when you see two males or females holding hands on the sidewalk, it doesn't mean they're not allowed to be married; it means you need to take a walk right into the 21st century. It's been almost a month since SCOTUS's landmark decision and all seems to be fine. In the U.S., cars aren't floating into space, God hasn't come down to smite us, and no one should feel any less free because of it.
Now, while we're on the topic... the people who most commonly complain about gay marriage (white, Christian, heterosexual, Americans) are actually the least discriminated against group in all of our society (which is probably why it's so weird for them to see things they disagree with become laws). There's a word for that: privileged. There was actually a movement by professors at the University of San Francisco showing, students and faculty alike, the privilege they share if they too were white Christian heterosexual males.
It's enlightening to see the kind of reaction the most privileged group in America has when other groups start to share in that same privilege. They freak out.
I'm not gay, so I'm not saying in any way that I understand the struggle they live through. However, it's not hard to see that prohibiting a group from marriage (an action that would have no effect on your life at all) because of your beliefs is a completely bigoted and hypocritical way of looking at life.
I am a white, Christian-raised, heterosexual, American male and I know what kind of privilege I have in society. To say that others don't deserve the same rights I enjoy is not only wrong, but against what our nation should stand for.
SCOTUS is not forcing religious establishments to honor gay marriages, nor threatening them with penalties for disagreeing with their decision. This is the beauty of our nation. You have the RIGHT to disagree. You can disagree with each other, with establishments and most importantly, with the government without repercussions. So don't act like your religious rights are being taken away because another group (whose rights actually were being compromised) is now, finally, on equal footing as you.
When it comes down to it, as another great piece of American history says, "All men are created equal."
