Yesterday I promised "more on that later" when I mentioned that I may or may not respect someone's beliefs about homosexuality and/or same sex marriage which differ from my own--so I figured I better come back and clarify. Besides, it is a topic that seems to come up fairly often, more than I would have expected. Generally, somewhere in a debate about Supreme Court decisions or a discussion about a bakery someone plays the "so, if I do not agree with you, I am close minded or a bigot, but if you do not agree with me I am just supposed to respect that?! It should be a two way street!" And, if it really were that simple I would probably agree, but like most things in life, it rarely is.
So pondering a bit, trying to clarify for myself why I feel the way I do about different people and the attitudes they have and how they present things, I have come to realize that most people who see homosexuality as immoral, a sin if you will, against their moral code or religion fall into one of three groups and how I feel about that person and their beliefs is largely shaped by which group they are in.
I have plenty of respect for the first group. These are the people who see the rules of their faith as applying to themselves and their church and no one else. They don't expect others to come to the same conclusions about what the Bible or the Koran, etc means, or even expect others to believe in the same religious texts or god(s). In other contexts, that might be a Jewish person keeping Kosher, but not expecting other Jews and certainly not Christians, Hindus, Muslims or Atheists to stick to those same dietary guidelines. Or it might be a Muslim women who wears a hajib but does not expect all the other women she encounters to do the same. Or an atheist who does not attend church (or attends a UU church) but doesn't look down upon those who do attend or believe. In this case, it means the person might well seek out a church which does not perform same sex marriage, and would not date someone of the same sex them-self, and can articulate their reasoning for believing as they do if there is a discussion about beliefs, or what the church should do, or what not---but the topic probably doesn't come up all that often--certainly no more often than someone who keeps Kosher bringing that up (and that can come up from time to time when needed: to order a special meal, or explain why they are not trying the cake someone brought into work, etc). More importantly, when it does come up, it is in the context of "this is what is right for me" not in the context of "this is what is right for you."
The second group is a lot less okay with the idea that others have different beliefs than they do. They tend to see their beliefs as not only true for them but as superior to the beliefs of everyone else around them, and therefore feel they should point out "arbitrary sin" (by which I mean "sin" as defined by a religion or even an "ick" feeling but which is not something that is actually harmful to other people) to others, somehow proving or at least pointing out that they are better, or right, and others are bad, or wrong.
These are usually the people who get very upset at being told they are "bigots" or intolerant, etc. The Oxford dictionary defines a bigot as:
A person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions.
So, yes, I do believe that if you set your beliefs up as superior to those of others and insist on insulting people who believe differently, you are in fact acting as a bigot in those times. When you start flinging insults at those who do not share your interpretation of the bible, or do not believe in your holy book at all, you are not respecting the beliefs of those people you are talking about and to. To then turn around and demand to be respected for insulting others is kind of ridiculous when you stop to think about it.
If you are one of those people, I respect your personal belief that homosexuality is a sin but I do not respect your mean spirited and condescending attempts to foist that belief onto others. To go back to prior examples, I doubt you would respect someone who frequently posted and said that eating cheeseburgers is sinful, or that all women who go outside without covering their heads are an abomination, or that people who attend church have been duped by their religion which is not real, etc..
Sometimes posts and comments from people like this make me angry, but mostly I just find them deeply hurtful. Even more so when the person is using a particular religious dogma to justify posting and mentioning often their negative opinion on this particular topic while ignoring many other topics given equal weight in that dogma. As a Catholic, why post weekly reminders that homosexuality is a sin, but not do the same about divorce or pre marital sex or birth control? As a Mormon, why these posts but nothing about working on Sundays? Why choose to be hurtful at all, and if you do, why to only this one group (which just makes it all the more personal and hurtful)?
The last group does not just hurt me, they infuriate me. These are the people who have decided that their "arbitrary" religious rules (again, meaning not rules designed to protect others from harm) should be the law of the land. Some want to rewrite the history of a nation founded largely on religious freedom and pretend it was founded on Christianity. Furthermore, they want their own particular brand of Christianity to prevail, not that of the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Evangelical Lutherans, etc.
I will be honest here, if you are one of these people, I do not look kindly on you. At best you are ignorant and have been misled and refuse to do your own research from valid sources for fear of having your world view invalidated. At worst, you are deceptive and misleading others to try to change history to suite your desires; a dangerous force that needs to be stopped.
Personally, I feel it is a violation of the most basic of human rights to be forced to live by someone else's religious precepts. I find it wrong and rather sickening in countries with deep religious roots in the government, such as Saudi Arabia and Burma and egregious when such attempts are made in a free country such as the USA.
Maybe you can call me a bigot here: I do whole heatedly believe that people's rights to choose their own religion and religious beliefs takes precedence over your belief that your religion should trump all others and be made law. I am not ashamed to admit that I am intolerant of your attempts to do so. At this point you have moved beyond having personal beliefs that affect only yourself and are using your beliefs to inflict harm on others, and I feel justified in standing up to that. Then again, you would probably not tolerate a movement to make it illegal to eat foods that are not kosher, or one to force women to wear burkas in public, or one forbidding church attendance. It's really the same thing--but a lot less palpable when you are the one being forced to abide by someone else's religion.
--Hadley
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