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November 22, 2005
Religion and politics should not mix
Sadly but unsurprisingly, a sizable group of religious leaders in Minnesota recently got together to decide how best to insert their religious beliefs into our laws. They are looking for ways to press their agenda to amend the Minnesota state constitution to ban gay marriage by defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman. It seems the only time many churches get involved in politics is to oppress a group of people. As a bumper sticker says, “The last time politics and religion mixed, people got burned at the stake.”
Their position seems absurd. What are these priests and pastors afraid of? Are their churches - and belief systems - so fragile that acknowledging the rights of a historically oppressed group of people will prove fatal? If a man wants to marry another man, or a woman marries a woman, how will this harm a pastor? If these pastors are so set in their bigotry, fine, they don’t have to perform gay marriages in their churches. To force their beliefs on others who do not share them is an act of tyranny.
Ironically, it is also an act of hypocrisy. These are Christian leaders acting this way, yet it runs counter to the spirit of Jesus’ teachings. I’m sure Jesus never said “Thou shalt discriminate” or “Blessed are the intolerant” or “It is meet and right to lobby thy legislature to pass laws advancing thy dogmatic interpretation of religious doctrine.” This is an issue of extending legal rights to all citizens, regardless of religious affiliation. Marriage is a legal act which confers rights and benefits. Individual churches don’t have to recognize it as a religious institution, but by working to pass an amendment banning it, they are confusing a religious institution with a legal institution. So much for separation of church and state.
It would be much more honest were this group of pastors to simply say, “We are attempting to impose a Taliban-style theocracy in this state and in this country.” Certainly this is not an isolated attempt to force religious beliefs to become law, as the renewed attempts to insert creationism in schools under the guise of “Intelligent Design” shows. However, this is worse because it directly denies rights. Here, too, there are precedents: in the past, many churches fought attempts to end slavery and to give women rights. This seems an odd way to advance their alleged mission of spreading the word of their God’s love.
Posted by msveum at November 22, 2005 11:09 AM
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