Dear Readers,
It seems some people think that it is a "religious right" to discriminate against, oppress, exclude and persecute other people, largely minority groups. Any reader who has read the posts that I have written will notice that I am a supporter of LGBT rights for instance. In our world, some people claim that discriminating against others is an exercise in "religious freedom". No, it isn't. The freedom to practice your religion as you choose, does not include the right to legally oppress others. Religion is a choice, skin color, disabilities, sex, gender identity and/or expression and sexual orientation are inborn characteristics that are not really all that significant when compared to the character of a person. You are not born as a Roman Catholic, a Jehovah's Witness, a Mennonite, an Orthodox Mormon, a Hindu, a Buddhist or a Muslim. You choose to adopt one of those religious preferences which are subject to change. You know something interesting? I think it is hilarious when fundamentalist religious persons accuse LGBT people of trying to "recruit" others in becoming LGBT. I don't see LGBT people going door-to-door and telling people to be gay or transgendered.
I have seen Jehovah's Witnesses and Orthodox Mormon missionaries go door-to-door to try and recruit others into joining their particular fundamentalist Christian denominations. Does anyone else see the irony in that? I am an ex-JW as well as an ex-Orthodox Mormon, so I can speak from experience. Religious institutions discriminate on characteristics of who can be members. For instance, on JWB ( Jehovah's Witness Blog) which is run by two atheistic men who are ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, I remember reading a comment from a Jehovah's Witness man named Max on a blog post about a gay JW who is leading a life of romantic and sexual repression and doesn't much care for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society anymore, oddly enough. Well, Max was showing a very high-level of emotional intolerance towards other Christian denominations that allow romantically and sexually-active LGBT people in same-sex relationships as members and stated that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has never addressed the issue of whether people are born gay or whether homosexuality is a "choice" and he said something about not being able to do whatever you want.
Max, apparently does not take the "no harm" factor into equation when being able to do whatever you want. Whether or not the Jehovah's Witnesses choose to accept homosexuality as an inborn characteristic or a "choice" is irrelevant. The JW's don't understand much about how sexuality works in general and they don't seem to understand that sexual acts being performed by two consenting adults of the same-sex is hurting any outside party. The JW choose to discriminate against sexually-active LGBT persons in same-sex relationships when it comes to who can be a member of the JW denomination. The JW's don't see this as being prejudice or discrimination, but in fact it is.
We've see recently how followers of pre-Christian religions are barred from leading prayers at town hall meetings, although I don't think that prayer should be done when discussing civil affairs in governmental buildings. We've see how some individual pharmacists want to deny women access to birth control pills and we've seen extremists religious individuals bomb abortion clinics which have resulted in the deaths of numerous doctors and their patients. We have even seen religious houses of worship destroyed by bigots of all stripes. We've see how religious and secular Jews, of which I am a cultural Jew by choice have been persecuted by Gentiles for over 5000 years, especially during the Inquisition and the Holocaust. Women have been barred from serving in religious leadership positions and were denied voting rights until the 1920's in this country. African-Americans were considered the descendants of Ham and were considered "cursed" and were forced to live of a life of servitude to whites ( I am half African-American) and had to use separate facilities for many years and faced prejudice and discrimination from fundamentalist Christian denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ( Orthodox Mormonism). The LDS religious texts have passages written in them that outright condemn people with black skin as being morally inferior to whites, that their skin color is a "curse" but that dark-skinned converts can acquire a lighter skin tone in the afterlife if they do what the LDS Church demands of them, despite the fact that the LDS Church likes to pretend that the racist passages in these texts are referring to something else, although openly acknowledging such passages as being wrong and not using such passages to oppress blacks is a good thing. We should do the same thing for LGBT people too. We must also never allow slavery to be reinstituted either or let disobedient children be put to death, which are positions that the Bible supports. It's scary how people irrationally discriminate on such harmless issues as skin color, interracial marriage, same-sex marriage , transgenderism, gender or disability . What do you think?
Sincerely,
B.W.
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