Religious Freedom, Or Bigotry Rights?

[Solitary]

Americans United for Separation of Church and State launched a new initiative on Tuesday that it says will fight the “growing idea that ‘religious freedom’ gives people a right to thwart marriage equality for LGBT Americans.”

At a news conference at the National Press Club, Americans United’s top three leaders said the group’s new ‘Protect Thy Neighbor’ project would also challenge efforts by the religious right to deny women access to reproductive care and use taxpayer dollars to discriminate. “Same-sex couples may have won the right to marry, but that doesn’t mean that extreme fundamentalist zealots who oppose any expansion of LGBT rights are going to sit by quietly,” said Rev. Barry W. Lynn, an attorney who serves as executive director of Americans United. “In fact, we know what’s coming,” said Lynn. “They will try to erect as many barriers as possible on the road to true equality. It’s an immature reaction, yes, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get traction.”


- See more at: http://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/07/08/putting-the-religious-right-on-notice/#sthash.3vZzqpt1.dpuf

[doorknob]

If I could murder the church and all it's teachings it's self I totally would. It pisses me off to no end that the religious feel they have a right to impose their beliefs on others and stick their nose into my health care to boot. I would think that hippa would solve this but i guess not. It's not the churches business as to weather I use birth control and why. Yes the insurance company should pay for it, it's a health issue!

[Solitary]

Hell, even are laws don't understand the difference between a crime and a health issue. Look at how many laws were based on religious dogma and still are on the books. The thing that really gets to me with Christianity is how they cause problems and then brag about how they help with the problems it causes, like over population (Wee help the poor and starving children!). We demand your obedience or you go to hell (But we love freedom.) You are a sinner (But we and God forgive you, just confess!) We and God love you, as long as you are not any different than we are because we are placating God and are Christian soldiers that are just doing His work for Him and can't be wrong. This is a secular Nation and why it is great, and Christianity has done everything it can to make it a theocracy like it is in the Middle East.  :fU: This is why so many atheists hate fucking religion and its mind control over the masses to further their agenda for their leaders benefit Christian idiots.   

[TomFoolery]

I don't know why it's so hard for them to understand that "religious freedom" also means my right to be free of their religion.

Freedom definition: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

[Baruch]

Unfortunately ... it seems that there is little to be proud of these days ... regarding my fellow Americans.  They simply don't want any law at all, unless they are the judge, jury and executioner.  If your neighbor shows up at your door looking like someone from Executioner-Con ... don't open the door!  Religion is just an excuse ... ask any Briton from 1776 ... the primary American religion is anarchism.

[KingJ]

The church's focus is wrong. The focus needs to be on media and all the sexual immorality on it. No more porn!  To a degree I do feel the church has to do something as I don't trust the end game of the gay right activists. I believe more agendas are going to be pushed that break marriage down to nothing. So for the future of our kids...something has to be done.

[Solitary]

KingJ, curious, do you think nudity is porn? Gays support marriage you idiot, that's why they want to get married also. Gays getting married doesn't mean you can't. You are confusing marriage with Puritan ethics promoted by Christian dogma that says the family is the only way to go. How in the hell is gays getting married a threat to you? First of all it is none of your God damned business to tell others what they can't do based on Puritan ethics and bigotry. Sometimes people are threaten by the vey thing they desire because we fear the thing we want the most, like the first time you have a date with a girl and take her to a movie and are afraid to put your arm around her. Do you thing your mother and dad were performing a pornographic act when they conceived you and God was watching?

[Termin]

The church's focus is wrong. The focus needs to be on media and all the sexual immorality on it. No more porn!  To a degree I do feel the church has to do something as I don't trust the end game of the gay right activists. I believe more agendas are going to be pushed that break marriage down to nothing. So for the future of our kids...something has to be done.

[aitm]

The church's focus is wrong. The focus needs to be on media and all the sexual immorality on it. No more porn!  To a degree I do feel the church has to do something as I don't trust the end game of the gay right activists. I believe more agendas are going to be pushed that break marriage down to nothing. So for the future of our kids...something has to be done.

yeah, cause the catholic church deciding that a 20 year marriage is now null because they got paid off by a wealthy man, or that the almost all churches allows people to get married 4, 5,6 7 times and nobody says a damn thing about marriage meaning nothing. LOLOLOL you're a fucking idiot.

[Solitary]

WWJD?

[trdsf]

I don't have any problem with a church refusing to perform any marriage they have an internal and consistent religious objection to.  They are allowed to decide what is and isn't allowed within their church walls, with certain and very infrequent limitations.  I don't even really have a problem with a church choosing to only rent event space to church members, although that's a bit more of a burden, especially in regions with limited options for holding receptions.

However, they are not allowed to impose their church dogma on civil society.  That's the tradeoff they get for being tax-free and suffering almost no state intervention, no matter how egregious the group is.  Someone who's in business in the public sphere needs to operate in the public sphere; picking and choosing clientele based on the business owner's religious beliefs is absolutely discrimination, and legally enshrining that "right" is no more ethical than Jim Crow laws were.  I see no difference between being allowed to deny service to people based on race, and being allowed to deny service based on orientation.

And imagine, for a second, how loud the screeching would be if someone refused service to a Christian because it was against their  "closely held beliefs".

[Baruch]

Termin ... Michelangelo got things backward ... heroic nudity is divine, humans wear clothing.  Or it that really Man creating G-d? ;-)

See 1:47 ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j8w1c0HyOE  ... I find humanity and G-d ... disturbing ... but not evil.  Genius is like that.

[KingJ]

KingJ, curious, do you think nudity is porn? Gays support marriage you idiot, that's why they want to get married also. Gays getting married doesn't mean you can't. You are confusing marriage with Puritan ethics promoted by Christian dogma that says the family is the only way to go. How in the hell is gays getting married a threat to you? First of all it is none of your God damned business to tell others what they can't do based on Puritan ethics and bigotry. Sometimes people are threaten by the vey thing they desire because we fear the thing we want the most, like the first time you have a date with a girl and take her to a movie and are afraid to put your arm around her. Do you thing your mother and dad were performing a pornographic act when they conceived you and God was watching?

I did not want to discuss gays and their marriage. Simply that their agenda seems to be more then just eqaul rights.

I support the freedom of all. Paul was crystal clear in 1 Cor 5!!! that we should find a way to live at peace with all or else we would ''need to leave the world''  .

Harsh judgment is for those in the church.

[KingJ]

yeah, cause the catholic church deciding that a 20 year marriage is now null because they got paid off by a wealthy man, or that the almost all churches allows people to get married 4, 5,6 7 times and nobody says a damn thing about marriage meaning nothing. LOLOLOL you're a fucking idiot.

The bible is clear on marriage. The wealthy man cannot anul a marriage. Whoever ordained that is in the clear wrong.  Mutliple marriages is a joke. Yes, many Christians are guilty of it. I know a pastor who left his wife for a younger upgrade and the wife ended up committing suicide.  My church is very strict on it. I would never listen to a pastor that abandoned a lady that committed her entire life to him or vice versa. Nobody is perfect, but there are venial and mortal sins.

[Mike Cl]

The church's focus is wrong. The focus needs to be on media and all the sexual immorality on it. No more porn!  To a degree I do feel the church has to do something as I don't trust the end game of the gay right activists. I believe more agendas are going to be pushed that break marriage down to nothing. So for the future of our kids...something has to be done.

A good first step would be to ban the immorality that christianity is and get rid of that perversion and insanity for all time.