I am floored at how this country touts its “freedom of religion” and how it claims to separate church and state. The truth is, these days you really only have freedom of religion if you are a member of one of several main-stream Christian religions, or to a lesser extent Judaism. And then the only reason that you have such freedom of religion is because you already agree with the laws in play. If you are a devotee of, oh lets say Voodoo, you are screwed, Dude. This article is going to sound a lot like the Crank Manifesto, but this shit is really PISSING ME OFF!
Don Your Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses Now
People seem to think that this country should favor Christians simply because it was founded by Christians. I’m sick of hearing “well, this country was founded by Christians so get out if you don’t like it.” Let us start here. Um, that is a LOAD OF SHIT! In fact there are many quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and others that indicate that they were not only not Christians, but they thought that organized religion in general was a bad idea (except, of course, for Voodoo). The founding fathers chose to loosely follow Christian doctrine when implementing American law because they believed that the Christian code of conduct reflected a certain degree of morality, and that that is necessary to prevent moral chaos. There is nothing promoting God, the Virgin Mother (yeah, right), or Jesus Christ any more than Allah, Buddha, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Voodoo Vikings. With that argument trashed, the founding fathers wrote down their intentions. They wrote what they meant and meant what they wrote. In fact, just to prevent us from making the stupid assumptions and judiciary decisions we are making these days they wrote “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people“. In other words, just because we didn’t specifically grant it doesn’t mean it isn’t granted. In fact, it seems to me that the overall mood here was to grant what is not specifically denied.
Keep in mind, also, that at the time of the writing of the Constitution most of the colonists had bailed Europe, endured months of nausea, vomiting, starvation, disease, sobriety and sometimes death crammed into tiny little vessels just to get away from persecution of one form or another, generally religious. It is ridiculous to believe that those that wrote “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” would intend to quash those peoples’ rights once they got here because they checked the wrong box under the heading of “Religion”.
With those things said, let us examine some of the major decisions being tossed around these days.
Gay Marriage
The last time I looked marriage was a religious construct. It is generally presided over by a holy man of some sort, right? It generally takes place in a church right? “What God has created here let no man put asunder”? That all says religion to me. So, since we supposedly have a separation of church and state what the hell is our government doing legislating marriage at all? There are those that say gay marriage corrupts the sanctity of marriage. Marriage? Sanctity? What sanctity? 50% of marriages fail. The same number have one spouse or the other cheating. Not to mention the fact that the Church didn’t even sanctify marriage until they discovered that they couldn’t stop it. Marriage was created by St. Paul to essentially pre-forgive the losers that could not resist the temptations of the flesh. The Christian elite, members of the Cult of Virginity, were the true Christians. Eventually they figured out that no one could, or would resist sex so the church just gave in and said “OK, you can screw, but just with her” (notice how no one has even heard of the Cult of Virginity any more?). We see how well that is working out. Churches can’t even agree on whether their holy people can marry or whether anyone can get unmarried. How can the government step in and make any decisions regarding marriage and still remain impartial? If homosexuals want to clamp on a ball and chain (as opposed to clamping a chain on a ball, ouch) who the hell cares? If you think it’s gross don’t go to the wedding. If you think it’s so wrong stop going to truck stop bathrooms and reaching your foot into the next stall.
Abortion
The religious zealot is willing to blow up a clinic and kill 20 people to prevent the abortion of a single fetus. Instead of getting a job and living their life, they take donations to park their fat asses outside of clinics waving signs, chanting slogans and blocking traffic so they can harass, intimidate and pour guilt upon already scared and desperate people. How Christian of them. Whatever happened to “walk a mile in someone’s shoes” and all of that holier than thou shit? Never mind that some of these mothers will likely die in childbirth taking their unborn children with them (assuming they get that far). Never mind that some of the mothers and/or fathers are not capable of raising a child. Never mind that some of these fetuses have major genetic or other birth defects that would make birth essentially a life sentence of cruel and unusual punishment (which used to be unconstitutional until W came along). I personally am not in favor of abortion, in my own life. I also acknowledge that I do not have the right to make that decision for other people. Sure, most Christian churches say that this is a sin at least or an abomination at worst (what’s the difference really? You’re still going on to burn in eternal hell-fire), but other religions have no position on the topic (Church of the Overhead Projector?) and thereby imposing whichever Christian regulations on me is a violation of my rights. Sit down and shut up.
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Again, who the hell elected the Religious Right to determine what I feel is legitimate research? This is research that has great promise to cure a multitude of diseases. What about the Embryo? Well, what about the millions suffering from what will almost certainly be curable diseases? These religious freaks have no problem slaughtering a pig for their Easter dinner, or a turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner, or a mutilating a decent grape to make their sacramental wine (have you tasted that shit? Ecch. Jesus did not turn water into Mogan David now did he?) We don’t even have to kill the fetus. In fact, it’s much more productive to keep it around. Here we go, remove the would-be aborted fetuses and keep them in a Petri dish harvesting the occasional stem cell for research. That way no one dies, we won’t be faced with cloning humans to satisfy research needs, and we may be able to cure some diseases to further complicate the world population problem. That has no religious implications, or does it…
Save the Children
Remember, save the children even if there are way too many people living in a region to support them. Send them food and send them schools, but don’t teach them to use birth control or supply condoms so they will get HIV or get pregnant over and over, the way God intended. Then, because there are no abortions allowed, force them to have the children that they cannot support (and the very land upon which they live cannot support) and to whom they will likely pass on HIV. This will only serve to perpetuate, nay, expand the problem. But don’t worry, global warming will provide ample water and vegetation in a few short decades.
*whew* Breathe Pierce, breathe. Anyway, that’s their country and this is ours. Look what a religious government has done for the Kurds, Sunnis, Shiites, and, of course, the Taliban? Unless you want that shit right here at home keep those bible (or Koran, or Torah, or Book of the Dead) beating, fundamentalist bastards out of my government, dammit.
