No, It is NOT Acceptable To Claim That God Says It's OK For You To Be A Stupid Bigot [View all]

[kpete]

At some point, this has to stop. No, it’s not acceptable in a civilized society to claim that God says it’s okay for you to be a stupid bigot. And it doesn’t matter how many people believe it is. They’re wrong. Period.

You know how I feel about faith-based religion because I’ve written about it so many times before. The fact is that when you peel away the culturally sanctioned rationale for believing that homosexuality is wrong — or for refusing to eat meat on a Friday, or for sitting on a box and covering the mirrors after someone dies, or for making sure that a woman’s body is clothed almost completely — what you’re left with is just plain old-fashioned crazy. And what’s worse is that, as the Robertson story proves, the rules and restrictions adhered to by the faithful all too often negatively impact people who should be well beyond the jurisdiction of any one particular religion. It would be one thing if Robertson merely believed that gay people were an affront to God, but those beliefs inform his actions. No belief is benign. It’s one thing for someone to, let’s say, make a personal decision not to work on Sunday because he thinks his god demands it — it’s another thing entirely for a pharmacist not to dispense the morning-after pill for the same reason.

I quite frankly don’t give a damn what someone’s god wants; the rights, privileges, and even whims of living, breathing human beings take precedence over the requirement they’ve imposed upon themselves not to offend the imaginary friend they talk to before they go to bed every night. The rights of a gay person to live without persecution and to be afforded equal marriage opportunity should at no point be considered equal to the “rights” of the faithful to adhere to the regulations imposed by Jesus (or Yahweh, or Muhammad and so on). Yes, you’re allowed to believe what you want, but when that belief collides with reality, reality shouldn’t be the one forced to submit. In the game of chicken between what’s proven and what can’t be, guess which one has to veer off?

Phil Robertson believes in the God of the Bible. He believes that this god doesn’t approve of the behavior of gay people and that that makes it okay for him to call them “ruthless” and “full of murder.” Fine. He can think whatever nonsense he wants. But he doesn’t get to throw up his hands and grant himself immunity from the outraged response of people whose beliefs adhere to logic, reason, and live-and-let-live compassion by “shifting the blame” over to his Christian faith. And neither do any of those defending him. Sorry, you don’t get to hide behind faith. And the entire ridiculous concept of faith shouldn’t be protected when it informs and perpetuates intolerance.


http://thedailybanter.com/2013/12/phil-robertson-shouldnt-be-able-to-hide-behind-his-faith/