Monday, December 15, 2008

The Bible Supports Gay Marriage (NewsWeek)

Miller, L. (December 15, 2008). "Our Mutual Joy." Found in Newsweek.

What I love about the gay marriage and religion conflict when it comes to government legislation is that people conveniently forget that by virtue of the first amendment, people are afforded freedom of religion. By making said issue a religious issue, a Christian agenda is being forcibly imposed on a nation that is supposed to be able to believe whatever they want.

The counter argument can be made that the religious folks who speak out against gay marriage are simply exercising their first amendment right to free speech, which I cannot disagree with. However, what I can disagree with is the fact that they want these religious beliefs, a specific set of beliefs that not everyone in the nation is compelled to share, to dictate public policy. They can also argue that the country was founded on Christian values, with the Founding Fathers deliberately invoking God in their writings. Of course, some early American history professors would disagree with this argument, reminding those debaters that not only were the first immigrants fleeing persecution (much like what the LGBT community is fighting now), but the Founding Fathers were not Christians, but in fact deists who believed in a supreme being deemed God, but rejected ideas such as prophecy and miracles in favor of reason.

I think I may have gone off on a tangent there and ceased to effectively convey my train of thought even though it makes sense to me on second read. I also think the argument might be incomplete, but for the moment I have nothing else to add.